Société québécoise de science politique

Values and the Methodology of Political Science: A CommentAuthor(s): Barry CooperSource: Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 4,No. 1 (Mar., 1971), pp. 119-122Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science politiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3231448 .

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Notes

Values and the Methodology of Political Science: A Comment

BARRY COOPER York University

Readers of Thomas H. Greene's article, "Values and the Methodology of Political Science,"1 may have detected a theme of importance to political philosophy, a theme which, however, the author did not explicitly identify. Greene divided his essay into five parts: the first, third, and fifth parts contain what I believe to be an argument in favour of the reconciliation of social science and political philosophy; the second and fourth parts are devoted, in some measure, to a criticism of two contemporary political philosophers, Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss. Greene argues, in effect, that the recon- ciliation of political philosophy with social science will have taken place when political philosophy is understood within the categories of social science, specifically within "Robert Merton's categories of theoretical range" (p. 274). The truth of Greene's argument depends, in part at least, upon the correctness of his understanding of Voegelin and Strauss. Correlatively, his argument is vitiated to the extent that he has not understood what Voegelin and Strauss have written about politics and theory and why, on the basis of such writings, they object to social science. What the author does not consider, but which ought to be con- sidered, is the possibility that if social scientists and political philosophers have little of creative import to say to each other, it may be for sound reasons.

One of Greene's important assertions is that "Voegelin, Strauss, and their students have tended to treat social science as an undiffer- entiated whole with respect to the character- istics of research techniques, substantive findings and types of theoretical generaliza- tions," and that such a treatment "is patently in error" (p. 293). The error can be rectified if we refer to Merton's classification of theories, published for the first time some years before Strauss and Voegelin criticized social science.2

Merton's idea, originally intended for the reform of sociology, was to suggest that an area of research be categorized as to whether it was of a narrow, middle, or broad range. Greene suggests some criteria by which research is to be classified: it is narrow range if it refers to easily observed phenomena and it grows broader as observation grows more difficult (p. 295). The error of Strauss and Voegelin was not simply that they failed to appreciate Merton's insight but also that they failed to understand that objectivity increases as pheno- mena become more easily observed. In Greene's words: "We control for the influence of values, then, as we elaborate hypotheses that refer to observable phenomena" (p. 294). The argument continues that broad range theory, because it does not rely upon direct and easy observation and because it cannot be tested empirically, cannot be objective and value free. Combining the assertion that objectivity increases with narrowness of range and the observation that most social scientists are concerned with empirically testable narrow and middle range theories, the criticisms of Strauss and Voegelin are explained: "... most of the theories ela- borated by the great political philosophers of western civilization, from Plato and Aristotle through Hegel and Marx, have been theories at the broad range level. It should come as no surprise, then, that scholars such as Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss - who readily admit to being philosophers first and scientists (if at all) last - are especially sensitive to the problem of values in social science. Their training and their continuing concern have been with regard to the broad range level of political theory. And at this level theory may well be characterized by empirically non-relevant deduction which is clearly pervaded by the values of the thinker" (p. 296). Let us leave aside, for a moment the assumption that value control increases with narrowness of range as well as the "traditional view" concerning distinctions among "reason. 1Thomas H. Greene, "Values and the Method-

ology of Political Science," this JOURNAL, III, no. 2 (June 1970), 275-98. Page references will be found in parentheses in the text. 2Merton's Social Theory and Social Structure was first published in New York in 1949. The

books by Voegelin and Strauss to which Greene refers, The New Science of Politics and Natural Right and History, were first published in Chicago in 1952 and 1953 respectively.

Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, Iv, no. 1 (March/mars 1971). Printed in Canada/Imprim6 au Canada.

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120 BARRY COOPER

fact, and value" (p. 275) which supports the assumption, and turn instead to the charge that political philosophy "may well be ... empirically non-relevant."

Greene states that "Voegelin argues that 'the Gnostic politicians have put the Soviet army on the Elbe, surrendered China to the Com- munists, at the same time demilitarized Germany and Japan and in addition demobi- lized our own army' " (p. 279). In the original, Voegelin continued by stating that the descrip- tion of postwar events was "trite" which is to say that he was illustrating the effects of policies "pursued as a matter of principle, on the basis of Gnostic dream assumptions about the nature of man, about a mysterious evolution of man- kind toward peace and world order, about the possibility of establishing an international order in the abstract without relation to the structure of the field of existential forces, about armies being the cause of war and not the forces and constellations which build them and set them into motion, etc."3 Whether we wish to call the establishment of communist rule in China a "surrender" is certainly debatable: but Voegelin's level of discourse lies elsewhere. Criticism of Voegelin's argument would entail denying not that the Soviet army in 1952 was on the Elbe, that Germany and Japan were demilitarized, that the United States and Britain had been demobilized, and so on, but that the reason why this had come to pass was because Anglo-American statesmen were of the opinion that mankind was evolving towards peace and harmony, that international order could be established in the abstract (for example, the institution of the United Nations was established in the hope of creating order but was devoid of what Voegelin calls existen- tial force), and that armies cause war (so if we get rid of armies wherever possible by means of demilitarization and disarmament, for example, peace inevitably follows). That such beliefs were held by many Anglo-American statesmen is an observation which is also rather trite, and the argument must be joined at an even more basic level: the opinions held by the postwar Anglo- American statesmen presuppose "dream as- sumptions about the nature of man." Voegelin termed such dream assumptions "Gnostic" and provided an outline of the historical and experiential genesis of Gnostic ideas. One may argue with Voegelin's account of the origin of modern Gnosticism and one may argue with the phenomenological accuracy of his descrip- tion of Gnostic experiences, but Greene's first description of Gnosticism as "Voegelin's term for anything lacking in religious and particu- larly Christian values" (p. 279) is neither an accurate summary of what Voegelin means nor an argument against what Voegelin means.4

First of all Voegelin eschewed the term "value." Moreover, in the introduction to his book Voegelin argued why such a term has no place in political philosophy. Second, one need not be a Christian in order to avoid being a Gnostic. For example, Plato was neither a Gnostic nor a Christian, but a philosopher. And third, one of the main strands of Voegelin's argument is that the intellectual movements of our era, such as liberalism, positivism, social- ism, and so on, movements which Voegelin describes as Gnostic, are best understood as religious phenomena because of their experien- tial structure. At one point, for example, he borrowed Troeltsch's distinction, developed in an analysis of Christianity, between the axio- logical and teleological components of Christian symbolism, and argued that an identical struc- ture appears in various Gnostic movements.5

Greene's discussion of Strauss is also inade- quate. The quotation partially given at page 286 of his essay deserves to be introduced in full: "Political philosophy ... [is] the attempt to re- place opinion about the nature of political things by knowledge of the nature of political things. Political things are by their nature sub- ject to approval and disapproval, to choice and rejection, to praise and blame. It is of their essence not to be neutral but to raise a claim to men's obedience, allegiance, decision or judg- ment. One does not understand them as what they are, as political things, if one does not take seriously their explicit or implicit claim to be judged in terms of goodness or badness, justice or injustice, i.e., if one does not measure them by some standard of goodness or justice. To judge soundly one must know the true stan- dards. If political philosophy wishes to do justice to its subject matter, it must strive for genuine knowledge of these standards. Political philosophy is the attempt truly to know both the nature of political things and the right, or the good, political order."6 By "political things" Strauss means matters such as taxes, laws, jails, peace, police, war, and so on. These "things" are such that ordinary citizens are compelled, upon pain of de facto forfeiture of citizenship, to have opinions as to their goodness or bad- ness. Moreover, opinions of ordinary citizens concerning this particular tax or war or police- man are based upon assumptions concerning taxes, wars, and policemen as such. The critical, rational, and coherent discussion of the assumptions which underlie ordinary citizens'

3The New Science of Politics, 172. 4More accurate accounts of Voegelin's work

which rely on his major contribution to political philosophy, Order and History, 3 vols. (Baton Rouge, La., 1956-7) are Dante Germino, Beyond Ideology (New York, 1968), chap. 8, and Gregor Sebba, "Order and Disorders of the Soul," Southern Review, III (1967), 282-310. 5The New Science of Politics, 120. 6 What is Political Philosophy ? and other studies (New York, 1959), 11-12.

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Values and the Methodology of Political Science 121

opinions concerning "political things" consti- tutes the subject matter of political philosophy.

Strauss' description of political things must, therefore, be understood in the context of his description of political philosophy. Either one must argue that the subject matter of social science does not include politics or one must argue that Strauss' view of political things is in error and that social science also has a claim to study political things. What is not an acceptable argument is that Strauss is correct about the nature of politics but wrong about the suit- ability of social science for the study of political things.' Yet this appears at first to be Greene's position. He translates Strauss' statement that politics is concerned with justice and injustice, goodness and badness, into the language of Ernest Nagel who wrote that "there is no differ- ence between any of the sciences with respect to the fact that the interests of the scientist deter- mine what he selects for investigation."" Some- thing has been lost in the translation and the apparent harmony between Strauss and Greene and Nagel dissolves: Strauss said that the sub- ject matter of political investigation is such that questions of goodness and badness arise while Nagel said, and Greene agrees with him, that the interests of the (social) scientist determine what he investigates. Nagel and Greene, one might conclude, are able to conceive of political things in such a way that questions of goodness and justice do not arise, and consequently the social scientist has no need to search for true standards because the subject matter which he investigates does not demand it of him. But such a conclusion, however compelling, is not en- tirely faithful to Greene's position since the examples he gives of what constitutes a political investigation - examination of civil liberties and social welfare - are related to justice and injus- tice. For Greene, however, civil liberties and social welfare are not what is important. Rather, the "interests" of the investigator come first, and Greene states that the criteria by which he would evaluate civil liberties and social welfare are a function of his ideological opinion (p. 287). Unless we equate Greene's ideological opinions, "liberal values" and "value orientations," with Strauss' search for "knowledge of true standards," we must con- clude that Greene is concerned neither with true standards nor with political things per se, but

only with what "interests" him. As a practical matter, Greene's interests are his own concern: in terms of the theoretical problems of political philosophy, however, Greene has not made a sound rebuttal of Strauss. Indeed, we might conclude from Greene's argument that social science is concerned with gratifying the interests of social scientists by means of the investigation of non-political things.

If a few of the more gross misconceptions which Greene holds with respect to what Voegelin and Strauss have written have been somewhat overcome, it does not immediately follow that the major thesis of Greene's paper, that political philosophy is broad range theory and hence non-empirical, has been challenged. Before we can suggest what sort of theory it is that Greene has expressed we would be well to look carefully at its foundation: the distinction between facts and values.

A "value" is defined broadly as (1) "a personal or group preference," which, (2) "ulti- mately, is accepted strictly on the basis of self- evidence" and (3) "on the presumption of some posited goodness intrinsic to the preferred object" (p. 277). The first comment to be made is that if we accept (1) then we would say that there is no basis or appeal outside or above the person or group that prefers whatever it is that they prefer. That is to say, there are no intrin- sically good or bad preferences. Such a view is nothing if not consistent with a social science concerned with the gratification of interests: but then why include the subordinate clause? If the basis of the preference is the preference itself, then (2) and (3) are either contrary to (1) or are unnecessary. In fact they are unnecessary. With respect to (2), no description of what "self-evident values" might be is appended, nor what it is that makes them self-evident rather than, for example, self-deceptive; we must fall back upon (1), the mere affirmation of a pre- ference. With respect to (3), Greene does not say that the preferred object is good, a state- ment that would suggest that the "goodness" of an object was independent of our preference for it, but rather that an object is merely presumed to be good. But why should we presume that the object of our preference is good ? Greene does not say. His silence does, however, tell us some- thing: we can not consider the subject matter of political philosophy until we raise the question of the validity of the presumption of goodness of a preference, and we will not raise the ques- tion until we ask whether goodness (or a true standard) is independent from mere preference. To use one of Greene's examples, it may be a personal or group preference which is self- evident to the person or group, and which is posited as good, to bomb peasant villages and attack another state (cf. p. 280). But if such policies are irrational and unjust, our under- standing of rationality and justice will not be advanced by pointing to a conflict in values or

'If politics, by the nature of the activity, raises the claim to be judged according to goodness or badness, justice or injustice, then sound judg- ment is impossible without true standards. If social science claims to seek true standards about politics then there is nothing left to reconcile between it and political philosophy. 8The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (New York, 1961), 486 (quoted at p. 287 by Greene).

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122

preferences or interests or opinions between policy-maker and critic. On the other hand, if we state that what is valuable is good (rather than what we prefer we presume to be good), it would follow that goodness depends not upon self-evidence or presumption, but is intrinsically valuable. Now, if something is intrinsically valuable, its goodness does not depend upon our preference. That is, a valuable thing has the same cognitive status as other things, which does not mean that it will necessarily be easy to see; in fact we might expect the opposite, that con- siderable education and intellect may be de- manded. The range of problems which is opened up by such statements is formidable, and may appear impenetrable to reason when stated so briefly and perforce in such doctrinaire lan- guage. The point, however, is a simple one: if we search for true standards, if, that is, we begin the quest that is political philosophy, we can only consider the standards for which we search to be, in the rather restrictive language of Greene, the cognitive equals of "facts." Alter- natively, one would have no need to search at all: one would prefer whatever one prefers, and rest content with whatever opinion captures the interest.

However doctrinaire political philosophy may appear to those who have not understood it, it is not so dogmatic nor so abstract as to prevent the raising of fundamental questions. Greene's reiteration of the fact-value problem is both dogmatic and abstract, and one suspects that this feature is the secret of its success; it is dogmatic because it precludes, on its own terms, the raising of questions concerning the empiri- cal or intrinsic goodness of objects as a basis for preference, and it is abstract because once the dogmatic ban is accepted, the "definitions" can be applied indiscriminately to both political and

non-political phenomena.9 Pragmatically, the imposition of fact-value dogma has been greeted with success in so far as it is widely accepted by social scientists. But if political reality is in fact described the way Strauss suggests, the consequence of pragmatic success, including the classification which Greene bor- rowed from Merton, will be to obscure our understanding of both politics and political philosophy. It is for this reason that the attempt to reconcile social science with political philo- sophy cannot be welcomed by students of politics.

9An example of such abstract application of concept is the "device" of "an hypothesized means-end construct" (p. 277) in which the value serves as a posited end. Two things must be said of such a "device." First, it may say nothing about politics because it is "an hypothesized ... construct," which, exactly be- cause it is hypothetical and "constructed," need not refer to politics but only to other hypo- thetical constructs and devices. Second, if we presuppose that by fiat (or definition) the hypo- thetical construction and devices do apply to politics, we must ask if the terms "means" and "end" are appropriate to the study of politics. An end is really something produced by means of something else; but once something is produced it can be used and in being used becomes a means. There is nothing inherent in the means-end category which prevents an end from becoming a means, which should suggest not the Kantian paradox of an end in itself but the inappropriateness of the category for the study of politics. See, for example, chap. 21 of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition (Chicago, 1958), for further argument along these lines.

WAYNE G. REILLY

Political Attitudes among Law Students in Quebec

WAYNE G. REILLY Hollins College, Virginia

I

The Preliminary Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism begins with a sombre statement concerning the condition of Canada. The commissioners note that "Canada ... is passing through the greatest crisis in its

history" and that "the source of the crisis lies in the Province of Quebec." The purpose of this note is to report the results of a limited investi- gation of that crisis.

The object of the study was an exploration of the political attitudes of French- and English- speaking law students in Quebec. Specifically,

Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, Iv, no. 1 (March/mars 1971). Printed in Canada/Imprim6 au Canada.

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