American Social Science
The concept of values became the center of social theory in American social science in the 1940s and 1950s. The struggles against fascism and communism convinced social scientists - along with the rest of Americans - that the basic values of those totalitarian societies were fundamentally different from the values of America. In the context of World War Two and the early Cold War, values were of life and death importance. Scientists carefully studied values empirically. They discussed the meaning of values in social relations. Values, as they defined them, were the basis of our free society.
After the mid-twentieth century, the interest of social scientists shifted away from the study of values. This shift in interest resulted largely from the rise of post-modernist theory in the 1970s and 1980s, which held an extreme position on cultural relativity. In post-modern theory, all values were completely relative to the cultures which held them. Values were seen to be the products of social processes, such as mythmaking, and ideologies. Values were not fundamental entities; they were, consequently, less important to study.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the leading social theorist of values was the Harvard sociologist, Talcott Parsons. In 1951, Parsons and Edward Shils, of the University of Chicago, published a theory of sociology{1} in which values held center place. We will approach the social science concept of values through their theory.
Before I discuss the social science definition of values, I shall briefly discuss the social science approach to the study of values. Social scientists - like all scientists - can study only observables they can describe and measure. They can study behavior, including social behavior, because they can observe it; but they cannot study consciousness, because they cannot (directly) observe states of awareness. This is one reason social science is sometimes called behavioral science. When studying values, therefore, the social scientists can study only the behavior that expresses values, but not the experience of values in the minds of persons. As a result, the way in which social scientists discuss values will seem to the nonscientists somewhat indirect and stilted. With that preface, let's look at some definitions.
The Parsons and Shils text provides several definitions that are useful. Here is the simplest, by Harvard anthropologist, Clyde Kluckhohn:
"A value is a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the selection [of behavior] from available modes, means, and ends of action."{2}
Let's take this definition apart, starting with the notion of social behavior.
Individual persons behave in social situations, that is, in situations of relationships with other persons. Behavior is functional and goal-directed. We act to acquire something or solve a problem. All social behavior involves choosing one behavior or one path of behaviors from a range of alternatives. The Kluckhohn definition starts with what can be observed by the scientist, which is the behavior of a person or a group. Behaviors that are repeated are a pattern of behavior, representing a pattern of choices. The concept of values explains, for the social scientist, why one behavior is selected from the range of possible behaviors. A "value" is the idea in the mind of the person of what is desirable that guides that person to select one behavior and reject other behaviors.
Clearly, in this case, the value in the mind of the person (or in the minds of persons in a group exhibiting a common pattern of choices) cannot be directly observed by the scientist. From the scientist's point of view, the "value" is a hypothetical entity. The scientist can, however, interview the person, who might testify to the existence of what the person herself might called her "values"; this would prove the evidence of the hypothetical entity that the scientist calls a "value". By inference,therefore, the scientist is confident that a "value" does exist as an idea in the mind of the person.
The social scientists also invented and used the concept, "value-orientation". They employ this concept to identify, label, and explain a feature of value-based behavior that they had observed. "Values" implied that a certain behavior ought to be selected. A value was not simply a desirable choice, it was a choice that should be taken. Persons felt compelled to make a particular choice. What compelled them? Commitment.
Parsons stated the definition this way:
"Value-orientation refers to those aspects of the actor's orientation which commit him to the observance of certain norms, standards, criteria of selection, whenever he is in a contingent situation which allows (and requires) him to make a choice."{3}
Parsons identified three patterns (modes) of value-orientation; that is, he identified three kinds of commitments that persons feel that are involved in making choices of how to behave{4}. These three modes of value-orientation are:
Cognitive mode of value-orientation: commitment to standards of truth;
Appreciative mode of value-orientation: commitment to standards of gratification (Parsons' example, taste in music);
Moral mode of value-orientation: commitment to standards of right and wrong (in Parson's language, standards of assessing social behavior).
Parson's concept of the "moral mode of value-orientation", despite being stilted professional terminology, is very close to the popular definition of values that I discussed in my previous article.
For Parsons and other social scientists of this era, the commitment to standards (i.e., values) was the glue that held culture and society together. Values answered the question, why does a society work voluntarily, cooperatively, and peacefully? A society does so work, because its members hold values that produce patterns of voluntary, cooperative, peaceful behavior.
To these social scientists, free society based on values was obviously distinguished from totalitarian society. In totalitarian society, people behaved in certain ways because they were coerced to do so. In the police state, everyone is required to register themselves and carry identity papers. The state compels certain behaviors - whom you work for and what work you do, whom you can marry and associate with, what you can own, where you can travel, and so on. Police and secret police monitor and enforce prescribed and proscribed behaviors. You do not select behavior based on your values. You behave as you are told to do so.
This definition and discussion of values seems so sensible that one wonders how anyone could disagree with it? How, we might ask, could social science wander away from this common sense to the post-modernist notion that values are fantasies of no basic importance? We will answer this question in two steps. First, we will discuss the concept of values in existentialist philosophy; then we will turn to the concept of cultural relativity, heavily influenced by existential philosophy, which is the source of the post-modernist drift.
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Definitions Not Used
- 3. Popular Definition
- 4. Social Science Definitions
- 5. Philosophical Definition: Existentialism
- 6. Cultural Relativism
- 7. The Fact-Value Distinction
- 8. Collapsing the Fact-Value Distinction
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1. Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils, editors, Toward a General Theory of Action, with contributions by Edward C. Tolman, Gordon W. Allport, Clyde Kluckhohn, Henry A. Murray, Robert R. Sears, Richard C. Sheldon, Samuel A. Stouffer (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1951; reprint edition, Harper Torchbook, New York, Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 1962).
2. Clyde Kluckhohn [Harvard University] and Others, "Values and Value-Orientations in the Theory of Action: An Exploration in Definition and Classification," ibid., p. 395.
3. Talcott Parsons, "Categories of the Orientation and Organization of Action," ibid., p. 59.
4. Ibid., p. 50, and pp. 159-189 passim.
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