Exploring Fact and Value

Book excerpt: The great twentieth-century dichotomy that has pervaded moral philosophy and value theory on the one hand and social science and social theory on the other, concerns this volume. Part one approaches this dichotomy between fact (knowledge/science) and value (worth/morality) from different angles. It opens with a general study of the way value and fact are construed, then locates where scientific materials enter into ethics. Part two deals with issues of moral attitude and practical responsibility in the work of science and technology. Scientists' social responsibility as a function of changing social roles of science, and knowledge and responsibility in the professions are examined. In the concluding chapter Edel examines the dichotomy between fact and value as a social and an ideational phenomenon.