ETHICS AND DEMOCRACY

An anti-naturalist approach overcomes the strict dichotomy between facts and values. Social scientists are free to take up ethically engaged research projects if they are so inclined. This chapter shows how political scientists working within an interpretive, anti-naturalist framework can legitimately take an interest in ethical critique, critical sociologies, and democratic theory. Indeed, anti-naturalist and interpretive philosophy offers social scientists: a better account of the status of values within social reality; an understanding of the ethical significance of the human past; and a critique of technocratic forms of political organization. Interpretive approaches are also linked to a more deliberative theory of democracy. All this implies social scientists have ethical and not just conceptual reasons for adopting an interpretive approach.