The concept of value-free sociology was proposed by Max Weber, who claimed that sociologists should not bring their evaluation in their scientific work.
The original idea of August Comte, the founder of sociology, was that this science would play an essential role in the organization of society. However, it should not become a purely academic science but rather an applied, practical one in order to help social development in this way. However, according to Comte, he cannot accept such a role without passing on value judgments.
Weber was the first to come up with the concept of sociology as a non-evaluative science. Value-free, in Max Weber’s opinion, means the formulation of subjective desires. The irrational elements inherited from the value systems of religion, politics, and worldviews distort the cognitive process and enter science. His speech was a reaction to the criticism of the time by society, which blamed sociology for its subjectivity. Max Weber thus reacts with his concept of “value-free” science, which should maintain its positivist tendency in order to maintain objectivity and avoid distorting facts. Emile Durkheim supports this idea by saying that sociology must not be individual or social because it is no longer a science but a reform effort.
Weber acknowledges that it is not possible to avoid the researcher’s subjective preferences because his private interests and preferences give only the definition of a research problem.
In this case, Weber seeks to find a solution to the competing demands of reason and faith. And its solution was to ensure the autonomy of both spheres of activity. For him, the concept of non-evaluative science did not mean the exclusion of conscience at all. From Weber’s point of view, the doctrine of non-evaluation is basically an attempt to reach a compromise between the two deepest traditions of Western thought – reason and faith. Finally, he himself declares that conscience is the highest value, the manifestation of the transcendental “I,” which is superior to reason.
Even more consistent in this attitude were his followers in empirical sociology. The most important representative of this school is Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, who stated that valid knowledge should not depend on any value system and sociological methods of knowledge should be as accurate as a surgeon’s knife.
However, this concept was criticized many times. In 1938 R. Lynd spoke out against this concept in his work “Knowledge for What?”. He tried to prove that sociology is always an instrument of social reform, correction or change. It must therefore formulate practical recommendations that have the nature of a value court. Alvin W. Gouldner even calls the concept of non-evaluative sociology a myth he likens to the Minotaur. It is an overstatement that plays with the comparison that the existence of the Minotaurs, which are considered sacred because they are half-human and half bull and therefore very unlikely, cannot be refuted after all. The argument for non-evaluative sociology invokes reason however ignores experience.
All non-sociologic opponents agree that it is not possible for a scientist to completely exclude his personal preferences and beliefs from his research. Thus, we can only ask researchers not to state their judging judgments, but they will still remain immanently contained in their definitions of research questions, topic choices, and results. Suppose they are not stated clearly and out loud. In that case, there is a risk that consumers of their research will be subconsciously infected with their opinions and values without being aware of the presumption that they are consuming the results of value-neutral science. As Gouldner puts it: “The only choice is whether to express one’s values as openly and honestly as possible or to commit to the futile ritual of moral neutrality that leaves one at the mercy of irrationality because it urges him to ignore that reason is vulnerable to prejudice.
In this context, Vilfredo Pareto speaks of residues and derivatives, which suggest that the researcher’s personal feelings lead him to speak of what he perceives as an ideal state and not of objectively observed reality.
This topic undoubtedly reflects the context of the time, which forced Max Weber to strongly advocate scientific neutrality, but at the same time pointed out that scientific objectivity is something completely different from moral indifference. Gouldner argues that this attitude was probably a reaction to the awareness of absolute helplessness against deepening social problems, and sociology was in no way able to contribute to their solution.
The answer to the concept of non-evaluative sociology is engaged sociology, which admits evaluation courts or points out that evaluation cannot be completely avoided. It, therefore, focuses primarily on how to reduce the deformation of knowledge thus created.
He tries to do it mainly in these ways
1. a clear definition of the terms used
2. Sociologists will be systematically practising the ideal of scientific lenses
We will maximally formalize and quantify
3 knowledge, thus relieving it of emotional deposition
4. we confront our own knowledge with the existing knowledge and with the opinion of the scientific community
5. by clearly distinguishing between the role of the sociologist as a professional and the sociologist as a citizen
At present, engaged sociology mainly represents left-wing currents of thought (critical and radical sociology) based on the work of Charles Wright Mills.
A typical representative is Pierre Bourdieu, who, on the basis of his theory, which includes the concepts of habitus, class, capital and social field, openly evaluates the organization of society and its consequences.
The representative of structural functionalism, R. K. Merton, says that the sociologic truth occurs through engagement because the non-engaged sociology not only fails to describe some phenomena but it also can not formulate them. There are not in their sociologic optic. The opposite of engaged sociology is not only the value-free sociology which is non-evaluating and also political indifferent but also sociology which serves manipulative targets.
The new context has entered to the dispute of value-free science with analysis of the role of intellectuals in dramas of the 20th century
(see, for example, the work of Z. Bauman and V. Bělohradský). The concept of an engaged intellectual here is derived from the need of intellectuals to legitimize their own activity, to prove their usefulness. This demonstration of legitimacy can only end in the uncritical identification of the scholar with the political movements and parties, especially the left ones.
The question of values emerges as a major topic in the so-called interpretive sociology, which seeks to describe everyday life from the perspective of the actor, where his private values are a direct part of the factual content.
In the postmodernist debate, the dispute over values is a dispute over the more general problem of truth and the possibility of achieving it. The ideal of scientific objectivity is thus substantially changed or lost its meaning. “