===================== HES POSTING ====================== 
 
The interchange between Kevin Quinn and Greg Ransom in regards to Weber 
raises the interesting question of where and how the notion of 
"value-free" science entered the discipline of economics. Kevin pointed 
toward the formulation found in the first chapter of practically every 
first-year text as one of Weber's legacies (and implied that the 
economist's willingness to suspend judgement regarding individuals' 
values was also a debt to Weber). Greg suggested that these themes was 
present in the Austrian literature before Weber, and this literature was 
more familiar to English-speakers than Weber's. Greg also reminded us of 
Hume's dictum, which was integral to the common-sense philosophy 
of the Scottish Enlightenment. 
 
I would be interested in any other suggested answers to the question of 
where and how the notion of value-free economic came about. To start this 
off, here are a couple suggestions of my own: 
 
1. Anthony Waterman has argued that one of the first places the notion of 
a value-free economics entered the discipline was in Richard Whately's 
_Introductory Lectures on Political Economy_ (delivered in 1831). I quote 
from Waterman: 
 
"Against [the tories and romantics] Whately had to demonstrate that 
political economy is not in conflict with religion; that its method and 
findings are in fact 'value-free'; that its subject matter --wealth-- is 
not an evil; and that its principal theoretical achievement (the model of 
the self-regulating, market economy) is of service to natural theology. As 
against the radicals [utilitarians] he had to show that political economy 
by itself can be of no use in public policy formation; that additional 
value premises are necessary; that atheism must have as much difficulty in 
justifying value premises as religious belief has in accounting for evil; 
and that knowledge of the good may come from natural law or scripture, but 
cannot be had from utilitarian principles alone." (Waterman, _Revolution, 
Economics, and Religion_, 1991, pp. 206-7). 
 
 
2. My second suggestion is a North American issue which relates to how the 
notion of "value-free" science was received. My reading of American 
intellectual history has suggested that social scientists of the 
Progressive Era and the twentieth century were committed to re-casting 
American liberalism in a language stripped of its traditional 
individualism and Protestantism. Central to this program was the creation 
of a language of science and social control, in which the notion of 
value-free science played a central role. So what? Well, Kevin's comment 
about the arbitrariness of values is important here, because, unlike the 
Whately situation, modern social scientists could not appeal to natural 
law and theology. And yet --here is the crucial aspect of what I want to 
suggest-- American social scientists did not think of values as arbitrary. 
If you read Friedman's methodology essay, Gregg Lewis' remarks in various 
places, comments by Arrow and others about social values and economics, 
one is impressed by their willingness to assume that everyone ultimately 
shares the same values -- the basic values of the "American dream"? -- 
and that, therefore, the real questions of policy are "positive." Perhaps 
the most significant place this theme of "value convergence" (my term) 
appears is in the Becker/Stigler essay which is so central to the Chicago 
scientific research program. My argument is that twentieth century 
American economists have accepted the "value-free" science theme so 
readily because they implicitly accepted "value convergence" and the 
two themes together go so well with the agenda of recasting American 
liberalism in scientific language. 
 
(One of my lingering doubts about the argument just put forward is whether 
this is an "American" phenomenon or a "modernist" one. At the present, I 
would argue that Canadian economics in the twentieth-century shares a 
similar commitment to modernizing liberalism, but that the lack of "value 
convergence" in Canada for much of this century has created a different 
type of reception for the notion of "value-free" science.) 
 
Ross 
Ross B. Emmett                Editor, HES and CIRLA-L 
Augustana University College 
e-mail: [log in to unmask] 
URL: http://www.augustana.ab.ca/~emmer 
 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]