I came across this insightful passage in Herbert McCabe’s Law, Love & Language (thanks Halden!). For some reason I had never connected the fact/value split with production before:
Very roughly the bourgeois industrialised society is one in which men come into relationship, form a community, hence come to agreement and thus to ‘truth’, only in terms of production. What lies outside of this sphere is free, is not a matter of agreement, is ’subjective’. The world of hard facts is the world in which the factories are working, wages are being paid, goods are being distributed; this is the are of necessary agreement in the bourgeois society. Such a society does not require agreement in matters of aesthetics, religion, or ‘private morals’; these belong to the sphere of comment and are relegated first to private judgement (sic) and then, as their social irrelevance becomes clearer, to the subjective world of ‘values’.
I’d be curious to hear people’s comments on this: Is McCabe too simplistic in his appraisal?
5 responses so far ↓
Halden // December 28, 2007 at 11:07 pm |
I’d be hard pressed to come up with a critique of McCabe’s argument here.
kd // December 31, 2007 at 3:42 pm |
Excerpt from ‘Ethical Antinomies of Economics’ by
Manuk Hergnyan at ‘http://www.ev.am/Ethical_Antinomies_of_Economics.pdf’.
… “In the twentieth century, one of the “discoveries” within economics was its claim of being a value-free scientific discipline. Until the early 20th century, economics, and generally all social sciences, were considered to be subordinate to ethics. The father of classical economics, Adam Smith, was a moral philosopher. Intertwined with fact-value distinction, the concept of value-free economics was reinforced by the operational definition of economics, which is generally accepted nowadays. The definition of economics, as the most efficient way of allocating scarce resources, focuses on the managerial side of economic discipline. Managerial application is mainly concerned with the efficient way of organizing production, distribution, and processes of consumption. Efficiency is a concept which can be exposed to numerical manipulation, and, it tends to be one of the “competitive advantages” of science over many other areas of human life. However, its main implication is the ability to manipulate value-free concepts, which may position economics as a “pure” science.”
The quote above was simply to acknowledge the accepted antinomy of fact vs. value in economic thought. I know nothing of the merit of Hergnyan’s effort. If McCabe is simply pointing out the accepted antinomy in economic thought, it seems it would be difficult to argue with him.
Whether the antinomy of ‘raw fact’ vs. ‘value’ in any scientific endeavor is ‘reality’ (whatever ‘reality’ is), I’m convinced not. I’m inclined to believe antinomy is useful to any ’socially constructed reality’ (Peter Berger, Thomas Kuhn.) But after reading Torrance’s ‘Theological Science’ (among other of his works), who cannot question the existence of ‘raw fact’? A ‘raw fact’ is an act of interpretation; it is a ‘value judgement’ itself.
amondstien // January 1, 2008 at 6:35 am |
KD,
Thanks. This is helpful. I tried to use the address you listed above, but came up with nothing. Can you help direct me to where you found that quote?
Oh, and who are you?
- Christian
kd // January 1, 2008 at 8:19 am |
http://www.ev.am/Ethical_Antinomies_of_Economics.pdf
I just checked the address above and it works for me. The only point of the quote was to affirm McCabe’s thought as commonly accepted among current economic thinking.
I’d like to hear more about McCabe’s thought. Does he have a counter proposal to the ‘fact’/'value’ dichotomy? If so, what thinkers does he employ to legitimate his approach?
I’m Keith from Alabama. I’m a lurker at various sites:
douglas knight, inhabitatio dei, faith-and-theology. This was really my first post to a significant conversation. I was hoping I wouldn’t come across too stupidly. Thanks for your inviting response, Christian.
amondstien // January 1, 2008 at 12:09 pm |
Hi Keith. Thanks for the link.
I haven’t finished reading McCabe’s book yet. So far, though, it seems like an old school treatise, by which I mean he doesn’t really refer to other thinkers, he just writes. If he does refer to others it is not with a means to really examine their work and ideas, but rather he refers to ideas or thinkers generally.
Also, I am sure that he does have some sort of counter proposal, but I just haven’t read it yet. Eugene McCarraher, who I’ve been reading much of lately, does have some ideas for counter economic practices that are rooted in a participatory/sacramental understanding of the material world. If you haven’t yet, his stuff is definitely worth a read.
I have not read the piece you mentioned by Torrance, but it also sounds interesting.
Happy New Year!
- Christian