Facts and value

Question 1

What determines a fact to be factual?

Answer 1

Authority. • Authority claimed in factual matters based on the validity and reliability of the results of the study

Question 2

what is reiliability and validity?

Answer 2

• Reliability: the extent to which the same results can be obtained using the same methods over time (test-re-test repeatability), across items (internal consistency), and by other researchers (inter-rater reliability).
• Validity: the degree to which a study actually measures what it purports to measure. There are several different forms of validity in both quantitative and qualitative research.

Question 3

what can lead to an abuse of authority

Answer 3

• Value judgments may lead to an abuse of authority (pg. 13.)
• using your authority to make valued Judgements that you are not suited to judge and spreading it

Question 4

what is• truth proposition? What does it entail

Answer 4

A fact • meets the truth to an extent (truth criterion).However it is a falli able truth

as it has not been disproven . People can understand and follow the statement as it logically makes sense no matter how much it is repeated

Question 5

What is value?

Answer 5

• judgements of approval or disapproval (not dependent on the truth-criterion)
• based on belief
• proposition is that no value can be derived (that is it cannot follow logically) from a statement of fact

Question 6

what is the ought - gap?

Answer 6

• one cannot justify on a set of facts for a moral problem

• google def:It is common to think that there is a gap between is and ought — that is, thatpremises which are entirely descriptive or factual cannot legitimately yield a conclusion which is normative or ethical.

Question 7

what did Hume argue?

Answer 7

• Reason can combat emotions and vise versa
• No amour of Knowledge can affect your emotional or moral problems with others
• only your bond with them does
our conceptions from right from wrong does not derive from logical reasoning
but values

• value sentiments and Justifactions will always have an element of arbitrary ness

Question 8

what is Hammersly contribution to facts and values? How does he connect to weber?

Answer 8

• Summarizing British and North American debates of the relationship between social scientific knowledge and its relationship to values.
• Social Scientist and Moral Philosophers alike try to answer Hume’s skepticism
• Hammersley’s answer is based on Weber

Question 9

what is positivism and enlightment Ideal? What we some examples of this?

Answer 9

• Social Science should follow the Natural Sciences in form, method, and conclusions such that social facts become as clear as scientific facts. In other words, SS should use imperative facts like Science

examples:
• Homicide explained as easily as the fact that there are two hydrogen atoms in a water molecule,
• Market behavior is as predictable as the earth’s trajectory around the sun

Question 10

What is the problem with Positivism and Enlightenment Ideal

Answer 10

• people reject scientific model because its methods have failed to produce practical knowledge
• no pratical results were yielded which caused this rejection
• Doubts that the social world is compatible with the methods of investigation of the natural sciences
• Increasing disenchantment with the role natural science plays in our modern society.
• • If facts are distinct from facts, how can a social scientist speak to issues such as inequality, social change, discrimination, human rights, or discrimination? How can a social science be both “value neutral” speak to such practical and ethical problems?

Question 11

What is this table arguing? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Im6d4r_UXell5KIarDhE3UlHzIV-11jq/view?usp=drivesdk

Answer 11

This table is arguing for and against the Positivism and Enlightenment Ideal

Question 12

How are facts Justisfied? How are values not justified

Answer 12

• Facts are justified on the basis of reason (evidence, reliability of method and so on)
• Values cannot be justified by reason (Hume’s argument)

Question 13

who believes ultimate ends cannot be rationally determined?

Answer 13

Berlin, Weber and Hammersley

Question 14

what is Berlin’s arguments regarding ultimate ends

Answer 14

Our ability to identify some proposition as an ultimate end is just a “brute fact” of human existence
• Fundamental values are capable of being mediated and guided by rational evaluation and discussion
• The sense of reality (Berlin): one takes the evidence as it is in one’s evaluation of ultimate ends, even if the evidence runs contrary to one’s ultimate ends. (see pg. 15:
• “Weber saw social science as an essential component of the modern world, and as playing a key role in injecting a sense of realism into practical decisions of all kinds.”)

Question 15

what is sense of reality?

Answer 15

• The sense of reality (Berlin): one takes the evidence as it is in one’s evaluation of ultimate ends, even if the evidence runs contrary to one’s ultimate ends. (see pg. 15:

Question 16

Foundationalism vs. Coherentism

Answer 16

Foundationalism proposes that a belief must be justified by another belief, in a linear fashion. Coherentism proposes that we shouldn’t justify a particular belief but a system as a whole

Question 17

How do facts and values intersect? provide four examples.

Answer 17

Facts and Values intersect within a complex web of beliefs, theories, value judgments, and empirical assumptions about the world that change over time and in different contexts.

. Possibility of multiple equally valid answers to one question
• 2.Value issues almost always involve a number of different evaluative criterion, which will generate different answers and disagreement;
• 3.Values have to be interpreted in such a way that they are appropriate for the situation under examination;
• 4.Differences of opinion are going to arise from people from different situations in society.

Question 18

what is critical realism? What are the the two types of arguments that vehicle critism?

Answer 18

Criticism of social phenomenon may be derived directly sound explanatory models of them.

Cognitive Argument:
Establishing a fact about the world implies everyone ought to believe it;If we can show that beliefs about the world that are contrary to the facts in (1) originate in some institution, that institution may be criticized as well.

Non-Cognitive:
Unmet needs must be met. If the frustration of a need is caused by some institution, then that institution may be criticized.

Question 19

What is a cognitive argument? What are the Three concepts connected to the cognitive argument?

Answer 19

Difference between rationality of believing something to being true, and the validity of the belief that p is true.

—- of Indeterminacy: we have good reasons, are justified, in believing that something (p) is true, but we be wrong.
—Believing that p is true does not automatically commit others to share my belief (what if I’m insane?) (pg. 4)

—Even if we accept that we all have good reasons for believing that p is true:
——-We may face opposition because the fact is not applicable to the particular situation in question (exceptions to the rule);
—–May be disagreements over the scope of the knowledge claim

Degrees and Kinds of Belief:
—-Beliefs are not eliminated wholly but are often the subject of protracted debate, much depends on the reliability of alternatives.

• Fallacy that false beliefs are caused in a different way than true ones.
—-• Principle of Symmetry: cannot assume that true knowledge claims are generated in any different way from false ones.
—–• Equally false to assume that false beliefs function in some negative way (although they may do just that).
—–• Institutions can produce false and true beliefs (pg. 7)

Question 20

what is a non-cognitive argument? What are the three aspects of it?

Answer 20

Smuggling argument:
Critical realists smuggle value conclusions into their factual premises through the use of the word “need”.
Fact: people need food and water to live;
Fact: a person has neither food nor water;
Fact: if this condition persists, they will die;
False Conclusion: “no human being should starve to death” (pg. 8)

Conflation of Needs and Wants (pg. 9)

Hierarch of Needs:
Scarcity of the commons
Practical impossibility of equality: who decides what needs are equal?

Logically Impossible Argument: No argument from need will produce a single answer; therefore a direct inference from fact to value is impossible.

Question 21

What is the Conclusion this lecture make with ultimate ends?

Answer 21

Ultimate ends redux:
Hammersley acknowledges that it is impossible to avoid ultimate ends, and he accepts Berlin’s notion of value pluralism.

Critical Realists fail because they smuggle these ends into their arguments without acknowledging their implications in that they have already employed those values in the formulation of their research questions. (see pg. 11)

Even if social scientists could show us what value questions emerge from a particular set of social facts:
——No sufficient basis for a social scientist taking a “hard stand” on an issue;
——Knowing why a particular set of facts has emerged does not mean that people in a particular community should adopt those principles (Global Warming and “Drill Baby Drill”)