Use and abuse of the normative in sociological research

This paper argues that sociology's operational goal must be restricted to the production of factual knowledge, not extended to evaluating or changing the phenomena it studies or transforming society at large. In other words, its goal is defined by epistemic not practical values. At the same time, there are two roles which practical normative assumptions necessarily perform in sociological inquiry. First, they are involved in determining which research questions are worth investigating – this is Max Weber's concept of ‘value relevance’ or ‘value-relatedness’. Second, ethical and prudential considerations must regulate the pursuit of knowledge and its dissemination. However, neither of these roles involves committing research to a practical goal: value relevance frames the questions to be investigated, it does not make the conclusions of the research normative; meanwhile, ethical and prudential considerations act as an external constraint on the pursuit of inquiry rather than constituting its goal.