Should Sociology be Normative?

Abstract

This article critically examines recent arguments by Andrew Abbott, Jensen Sass, and Tariq Modood proposing a normative sociology, one that not only adopts an evaluative stance towards the phenomena it investigates, but also makes explicit and seeks to justify the values on which its evaluations rely. I argue that, while these proposals are to be welcomed in some respects, they fail to address two key issues: On what reasonable basis can it be assumed that there are single correct answers to value questions?; and What distinctive intellectual authority can sociologists claim to be able to discover those answers? I also point out that these recent advocates for a normative sociology pay insufficient attention to the opposing position, a commitment to ‘value-neutrality’, as proposed most notably by Max Weber. I argue that, while this is frequently ignored or dismissed out of hand, it represents a much more coherent and cogent view, even if its advocates have rarely fully lived up to its demands.