The main point of troubling to carry out any study must be that it is itself purposive and of value. It must lie in helping people to realise the positive values in their practical lives and in society and in effectively eliminating negative traits and all kinds of destructive attitude and behaviour. It is only from this sort of orientation that meaningful and adequately coherent theories in the humanities can be developed to cope with the varying circumstances of culture and life. The engaged evaluation of values is the only fully-meaningful and non-alienating way of applying in practice any truth at which social studies may arrive.

ON VALUES MISTAKENLY SEEN AS EXTRA-SCIENTIFIC

The natural sciences are neither value-neutral nor purely descriptive in respect of social, political and ethical questions, and it is the more so with social or 'human' studies. In deciding what to describe, how to describe it and for whom, evaluation is already present... and often one which passes unnoticed for what it is. Max Weber, one of the founders of modern European social thought, held that "Science strives to attain 'valuable' results which are scientifically significant; and that further, the selection of the subject matter clearly involves an evaluation." Further, he held that "There is no absolutely 'objective' scientific analysis of culture or of 'social phenomena' independent of special and 'one-sided' viewpoints to which - expressedly or tacitly, consciously or unconsciously - they are selected, analysed and organised for expository purposes."¹

This view was only recognised by very few social scientists, such as by Gunnar Myrdal² from the 60s onwards, but is at last gaining wider acceptance. The claim of traditional science to analyse, describe and causally explain independently of any particular observers' evaluation and (value-neutrality) is unfounded, as already noted here. Value-neutrality may be important in certain research phases of establishing facts or in mediating conflicts, but if absolutised without it becomes entirely self-defeating. However, the full consequences of this fact have by no means been drawn in the practice of these sciences.

All investigation always has some forward-looking aim. The very choice of subject, manner of problematisation, hypotheses and selection of relevant phenomena or experiment are not primarily based on experience but on some kind of aims, which thus imply values. They mostly involve a leap forward, what must be 'into the dark', from an empiricist's viewpoint. Yet though empirical research allows its researches to be directed by future aims, it seldom make these very explicit, if at all. Future aims are normative and not neutral. This destroys the assumption of a neutral, non-participatory description 'free of values' other than that of truth. Only once the assumptions, values and social parameters of a project have been settled can, say, psychological or social studies be 'neutral' within fairly narrow limits.

The human sciences would attempt only to describe values, not prescribe any themselves. There is a contradiction at the very fundament of this attitude, though. Conscious, voluntarily-acting subjects are studied by investigators who themselves are subjects whose evaluations of people and society from the background their particular cultural and social viewpoints are unavoidable, however liberal, pluralist and inclusive their approach. This personal, social and cultural orientation inherent in the researchers life is unavoidably present implicitly, and this can make such subtle influence an effective form of persuasion.

There is much to show that values, rather than observable facts, are the most crucial key to understanding the reality behind the scene outwardly presented by human behaviour. Even the best-attested of observable facts alter colour when explained by different interpreters, depending on their viewpoint, values, culture, frames of reference, methods etc. Conscious behaviour appears very differently according to whether or not it is looked upon as the result of meaningful, intentional 'acts' (provided the acts were of the voluntary sort). An action that seemed good at first can be seen a bad from a proper appreciation of motives, or merely unfortunate and mistaken when the practical consequences are known.

While the sort of objectivity and ethical-neutrality at which the human sciences aim is itself in the interest of the value truth, it has limitations in theory and practice. These stem from isolating this value from others, without which it fails to embrace human reality fully for what it is. Values such as the desire for removal of all conflict or violence, the development of peace and peace of mind and of the universal respect of persons, cultures and creeds are among the more obvious generally esteemed human values that all science must assume and respect fully. Accepting this, however implicitly, means that the dogma of ethical-neutrality is already surpassed. All that remains is to grasp firmly the ethical role inherent in all social studies and make it a definitive feature both of research policies and a key to judging the aims of research and related activities as well as their eventual achievements.

Much controversy arises or is construed out of the question of values; which values are right and which wrong, if any? Which values are to be tolerated even if their rightness is controversial? Has one a right to express and teach values or can one in any case avoid it? These are key issues of psychic and social development, not facts merely to observe and describe.

Max Weber again: "...the significance of cultural events presupposes a value-orientation towards these events. The concept of culture is a value-concept". "...cultural science in our sense involves 'subjective' presuppositions insofar as it concerns itself only with those components of reality which have some relationship, however indirect, to events to which we attach cultural significance." (ibid.)

What is meant by 'values' has also to be made clear. Values - not observable facts - are the key to understanding the reality behind the scene outwardly presented by human behaviour. The best-attested of 'facts' can alter colour when explained by an interpreter. They appear in deeper perspective when looked upon as the result of meaningful, intentional 'acts' (provided the acts were voluntary). An action that seemed good at first can be seen a bad from a proper appreciation of motives, or unfortunate when the practical consequences are known.

In practice, values are 'observable' only in so far as they are expressed in some statement or through some action. A 'value-judgement' can by identified as an decision expressing the desirability or undesirability of some social, cultural or other state of affairs. It may be made in full or partial awareness of one's own motivations, or it may be unwittingly expressed through behaviour, reflecting aims that one has absorbed from one's background or identified with in a variety of subconscious ways. Any individual (or collective) value judgement may itself be seen as expressing one of the 'universal' human values (say of 'truth' or of its sub-values as 'factual accuracy', 'honesty', 'reasonability' etc.). The universal values themselves are neither facts nor acts, but essences found in the fundamental strivings of human nature, however well or poorly they be realised in reality and allowing for divergent circumstances etc. (This assertion is itself testable as a general hypothesis).

SELF-LEGITIMISATION AND PROPHESY FULFILMENT

In the human sciences or studies, theories tend to have a legitimising as well as a self-fulfilling effect. The theory, say, that egoism is the primary motivating force of all human activity tends precisely to defend and forward egoism by giving it a scientific aura of acceptability. Likewise, Marxian theory has attempted to justify - and has historically hastened attempts at - changing society through revolution. Even those who hold physicalistic theories themselves tend to validate various consequences of their own theories in their social behaviour. 'As one thinks, so one becomes' may be an imprecise aphorism, but it does apply in some sense to the worldly materialist, who 'naturally' puts more value in things than in intangibles and thinks much in terms of money, goods, technology and possessions rather than the higher moral values. Any value-system affects lifestyle and personality.

A simple example shows how 'scientific prophesies' can have mass psychological and practical influence; a study of the opinions of private car owners' combined with measurement of traffic trends suggest that more roads be built, which then attract more traffic, thus 'fulfilling' the continuation of the original trend. Likewise, fatalistic or deterministic theories influence towards fatalistic behaviour.

Further, to lay much weight on the animal origin of the human body doubtless tends to accent and legitimise animality in behaviour. Foreshortened views of the human being, such as those forwarded in scientific works and TV series (eg. The Human Animal) through their constant comparison of the animality in man and mammal and the harping on man's instinctual and non-rational behaviour, obscure the essential nature of the human being, such as it is described by the great philosophers, artists and prophets of all time. Contrariwise, to lay greater weight on discrimination as a moral and intellectual force will probably tend towards the development of moral discrimination in action. In this respect, such theories surely have a general tendency, in subtle ways and with many variants, to become long-term self-fulfilling prophesies. This does not of course make them true. It does not support their validity, only the extent to which they were believed or acted upon. They are descriptive of whatever has gradually been made to conform with the theory. Nonetheless, where there are alternative approaches, some theories will of course still be closer to the truth than others. The self-fulfilling effect in any important area of life is itself extremely hard, if not impossible to study by empirical methods.

One outcome of this line of reasoning is that it is primarily a moral question which theory one chooses to develop. One basic moral value is truth. A theory with a wide scope and which can embody the full range of human values will tend intellectually to surpass one with a narrower scope. It will be closer to the whole truth, though whether it therefore receives widespread support is quite another question. Explaining human behaviour holistically at all satisfactorily in its endless complexity and its factual occurrences world-wide would hopefully bring it into accordance with a wider and more universal truth. This should naturally open for a good and valuable practice as a result of that vision. For this reason, among others, the aim of the present attempt is to bring the deep, universal insights available in the Vedantic tradition to bear on the subject matter of our Western humanities.

The purpose which gives any work its coherence of meaning in the human world is very seldom reflected upon systematically as part of the research. This is not least because such motivations are either of an extra-scientific sort (pragmatic, social, personal or other reasons extraneous to the actual content of the investigation) or are based on epistemological assumptions (testing of parts of or whole theories) that cannot be discussed (pro and contra) in the context of an empirical study without inviting the test of philosophical analysis and self-reflection.

What can come to be regarded as 'sufficiently verified' in the social sciences therefore depends upon the direction of interest or the research strategy in each case. It is here that the sciences, particularly the arts that would become 'sciences' of the human being, require a much more articulated and holistic orientation. Otherwise they risk being 'valueless' in the sense of not having intelligible useful functions.

This is not to deny the value of sensible empirical studies, but rather to show that empiricism often becomes the meaningless exercise of good methods without intelligible ends when not directed by an adequately holistic understanding or overall meta-scientific theory. Such a theory, moreover, can itself never itself arise only or even mainly from cumulative empirical work - no more than the theory of relativity could ever be deduced from the findings of classical physics.

MORAL DISCRIMINATION

This discriminatory power of the mind, possessed by all, is often called conscience. It persists even despite a dulling education, lack of proper socialisation or continued failure to act on its dictates. It alone allows one to see a clear course ahead through discerning what is right and good. The overruling principle in all science should rightly be practical-moral discrimination. Conscience is not merely intellectual, for it unifies truthfulness with other values like love, non-violence and right action.

This faculty to discriminate intelligently has been variously regarded in psychological and epistemological systems through the ages. Those in the tradition from Plato through Kant regard this higher form of discrimination or moral intellect as a transcendental function, a product of the higher mind and not itself essentially derived from sensory experience. It is known as buddhi in Eastern traditions. It enables us to develop practical reason to include others, society and the world and so as to apply moral discrimination to the unique circumstances of each practical situation. This conscience evaluates, telling a good from a bad course of action. The expression of this faculty are values, and the absence of it are denial and lack of these, that is, anti-values.

Moral philosophers through the ages have held the power of discrimination to be inherent to human nature. Whether there is such a faculty of intrinsic intelligence in every human being is a question which science cannot answer, again because there can be no experimentally-demonstrable empirical access to the inner life itself. This is available only to direct consciousness, which also indicates why it is impossible for physiology or neurology to penetrate the nature of consciousness, which is pure interiority.

The question of whether humans have an inherent ability to know right from wrong lies at the root of any study of our discriminatory powers. The standpoint adopted here is that discrimination is a faculty possessed at least in the latent form by every human being, yet it is one that is not always actually developed adequately... and probably very seldom fully so. For the great majority of people, though, we can safely assume that ethical discrimination is an inherent part of the human make-up.

This viewpoint conflicts with certain views that have been widely held since about the 2nd World War, whereby people's behaviour was thought to be (largely) an effect or the product of their environment and their heredity and thus they were (largely) not to be held responsible for it.

The recognition of our power of discrimination as being intrinsically human may itself be regarded as a moral insight and thus a judgement based both on observation and evaluation. There is no question of setting up emotion against reason here. It is rather using reason to recognise the fact of its own motivational (i.e. in some sense 'emotive') basis.

To explain human behaviour, some schools of thought claim to rely exclusively on objectively-given factors as the motivators of human action. These often include material and social conditions which range across many variables such as pleasure and pain, reward and punishment, force of habit, tradition, previous experience and so on. Rational grounds are sometimes included as one factor amid others, and so are supposedly 'irrational' beliefs (like religious conscience etc.), even though there are no foolproof and accurate methods of observing the actual subjectively-held reasons for which people do usually act.

Any factors one isolates from the virtually endlessly convoluted and apparently incoherent field of human experience are obviously themselves selected. The motivation behind such a selection itself implies evaluation at some stage of planning, as well as many an intellectual pre-assessment. Such selectivity, however systematically ordered, must always contain a range of cultural and personal pre-judgements, even if not direct prejudices. Care in reflecting over and making explicit the values behind all such decisions is therefore necessary. This expression of value-standpoints itself punctures the illusion of sheer objectivity.

Some observers consider that certain people have no conscience whatever - no sense of right and wrong - and term them extreme psychopaths or sociopaths. Yet the term does not answer the question. Empirical evidence may help us to decide what degree of responsibility lies with those who wilfully and unrepentingly commit acts of the sort we abhor as psychopathic. Whether or not the power of discrimination is always somehow present, and is simply ignored by - or else remains undeveloped or has been disturbed in some people - is not provable by any extrospective methods of research.

MEANINGFUL PURPOSE AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN VALUES

It not hard to see that the way out of the neutrality dilemma is both openly to express and forward one's values for what they are. An engaged evaluation of values is an honest non-alienating way of researching and presenting results. Any generalities about human behaviour at which social studies may arrive need openly to be 'evaluated', not merely as data but as legitimising or influencing values. Human studies must surely aim to help people to realise the positive values in their practical lives, in social institutions and in effectively eliminating negative traits. The influence of values on the actions of the growing individual must be observed and their relative importance and functions in the many and varied cultures that may be involved must be taken fully into account.

It is some such sort of orientation that allows meaningful and coherent theories in the humanities can cope with the varying circumstances of culture and life without doing violence to basic human rights. As Gunnar Myrdal has written, "...specification of values (on the scientist's part) aids in reaching objectivity since it makes explicit what otherwise would remain implicit." (ibid)

Norms or values expressed in social science research should be put to the test, where relevant by empirical and historical research, as well as experimentally through the trial and error method in so-called 'action' research. The influence of values, moral precepts and anti-values on human actions can be observed. Their relative importance and functions in the many and varied cultures that may be involved should be taken most fully into account in any relevant future-oriented studies in the humanities. The failure of the anthropologies and historical studies to discern at the general and higher level the common essences of religions, cultures and societies has led to the chronic inability to clarify values essential to the good life, whatever the race or creed, whatever the country or politics. The need boldly to state a sweeping overall blueprint for mankind has unfortunately been left mainly to any kind of opinion-makers and to 'leaders' in warring politics, where the battle of interest groups and the fashions of ideology dictate the order of the day.

The values forwarded, tested and exemplified in all aspects of social studies should be universal in orientation, however differently they may be articulated in different cultures and situations. They should not be dictated by some abstruse philosophy or closed ideology. That such 'universal values' exist is not generally accepted in the humanities for a range of historical, inter-cultural and political reasons. That view can be contested on a wide range of grounds. However, one cardinal task of the human sciences must surely be to seek and to study common human values by understanding, recording, analysing, defining, comparing, testing and even evaluating values.

Whether there are any values that are universally held in esteem and have objective validity as an essential part of the human make-up is today often either doubted outright or regarded as an unverified hypothesis. Because values are precisely not facts, however, the matter cannot be decided finally by any empirical 'scientific' means. Whether there is a true ethic somehow common inherent to humanity or not has been the subject of centuries of philosophical and scientific debate. Opponents of the idea assert that such values that exist are simply the result of sensible adjustments to circumstances or pragmatic behaviour for ensuring survival, reducing conflict, maximising security or even pleasure and so on. Hence, morals in modern societies today are in practice often made dependent on the perceived interests of either the individual, the group or the nation and are thus 'relativistic' without fixed value (so to say). Or they are simply denied, as in out-and-out immoralism on the lines of a free-for-all.

The hypothesis of a common 'human value' system which both motivates and comes to expression through fundamental strivings of most of humanity throughout history can be investigated and its consequences tested by a wide range of means. This crucial vision has remained unresearched, partly due to a widespread disillusionment with the disunity of humanity amid the great cultural changes and clashes of the 20th Century. As always, however, experience, rational interpretation and logical argument are the crucial part of every science touching on humanity and its enterprises. To these must always be added explicit constructive vision.

The essential goodness of human nature is ultimately something towards which we aim, however well, and is for us to experience, to reach out to through striving and self-improvement together with our fellowmen, but above all to discover and further develop in oneself. Progress in this direction invokes many kinds of feedback from others in one's personal sphere of experience, which strengthen the conviction that, despite all, values are a human birthright which anti-values are but the result of ignorance as to our heritage and shortcomings in so far discovering and pursuing our true destiny, whether individually or collectively.

The values that have always been at the essence of the 'perennial philosophy' are here regarded as 'human values'. The term 'human values', though employed in the early part of the 20th century by such people as Rudolf Steiner or Aldous Huxley, went entirely out of fashion in the English-speaking world until earliest 1988. Now the term is suddenly widespread again, though the meaning mostly varies from the vaguest of notions to quite culture-bound or subjective and specific sets of value codes. See Human Values

Continue to Ch. 12: Science and the Spirit
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The above material is the copyright of Robert Priddy, Oslo 1999