Werturteilsstreit (Value Judgment Dispute)

The Werturteilsstreit is part of the methodological controversies dominating the historical social and cultural sciences, especially in Germany, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The central issue was the problem of whether those sciences were legitimated and able to derive ultimate and universally binding value judgments (Werturteile) from their empirical findings and explanations.

The most important advocate of a value-free social science in this sense was Max Weber. At the same time, however, he stressed that as far as the selection and forming [Page 884](“Auswahl und Formung”) of their subjects is concerned, no science could do without a value relevance (Wertbeziehung) and that values and judgments are of course an important issue of the cultural sciences.

The most determined criticism of the postulate of value freedom always came from those who wanted to engage and employ the social sciences for their own political (or religious) purposes.

This interest was the stronger the more marked or more radical the particular political and ideological position was. Therefore, it is not surprising that the criticism of the postulate of ethical neutrality was uttered with particular strictness from the right and left pole of the political spectrum. Initially, Max Weber encountered the political abuse of the social sciences in the works of the nationalist historian Heinrich von Treitschke, whereas in the Verein für Socialpolitik (Association for Social Politics) he had to argue above all with moderate Leftist colleagues, the socalled Kathedersozialisten (see Nau 1996). Absolutely intolerable and even life threatening was the postulate of an ethically neutral science in both of the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century. And in the socialist or communist parts of the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it became the pivotal element of the non-Marxist, bourgeois science in general and the sociology in particular that had to be overcome (Weiss 1998). That's why the controversies of that time, at least in Germany, are frequently referred to as “second Werturteilsstreit” (Adorno et al. 1984).

As long as this interest was sufficiently strong, the Werturteilsstreit went on for years, with changing front lines and varying intensity. It seems, however, to be finally settled. As far as Weber's actually irrefutable logical and methodological arguments meet a general approval, one can, at least in this regard, almost refer to a generalized Weberianism in the social sciences.

Almost no one still claims that from a theoretical or empirical analysis of societal facts or tendencies a “scientific” moral or political strategy can be deduced. Likewise only rarely the opinion can be found that correct and relevant sociological findings were to be gained only within the framework of a specific moral or political orientation. As far as these fundamental questions are concerned, the Werturteilsstreit does not exist anymore. Despite this, very different ideas remain prevalent as to whether or not sociology has to regard itself as an integral part of the societal and political process (as Pierre Bourdieu believed) or if for the sake of its intellectual independence and honesty it must keep itself away from any sort of political engagement (as, for example, Niklas Luhmann demanded and practiced). In logical and empirical respect, the better arguments lie on the side of the second position. Nevertheless, one can argue, if not by formal logical but by pragmatic and maybe also transcendental logical reasons, that sociologists at least should suspend (as the value basis of their research) those kinds of moral or political options that are incompatible with the requirements and objectives of free scientific research, like the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. In this case, there is a kind of value relevance that derives from the reflection on the meaning and the prerequisites of science itself.

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