Not Possibility Objectivity In The Political Science
The Oxford English Dictionary (2018) defines political science as ‘the branch of knowledge that deals with systems of government; the analysis of political activity and behaviour. ’ As political scientists one of the goals of our studies is to use scientific methods to create both unbiased and well-founded fundamental theories of these systems of government, political activities and behaviours. But, for these theories to truly be unbiased they must be void of personal values and beliefs to political issues. This raises the question, can politics be studied objectively?
In short, the answer is no. Regardless of how we define politics it deals with the functions and structures of our society so when political scientists study how these functions and structures work and how they should be managed they will inevitably come to a biased decision, whether it be intentional or not, based on their own social experiences, their economic situation and various other factors.
For objectivity to occur there must be an absence of subjectivity. Hare’s method of universalisation attempts to achieve objectivity by requiring us to see objects from other people’s perspective. This method requires us to be empathetic which people generally are in day to day situations. This is largely in part due to us having experiences that are close to the individuals or because we find ourselves to be very familiar to them. But, when there is an absence of these similar experiences or of this familiarity then empathy has little basis. If an unemployed man, whose only source of income is gained through his unemployment benefits, hears of a government proposal to cut unemployment benefits what will his point of view be? He may potentially take this badly and see it as an attack on himself over economic circumstances of which he has zero control over or he may see this as motivation to go out and seek a job or it could be a completely different point of view we are unaware of. To find out which point of view this man will come away with we must know his thoughts on the current economic conditions and his thoughts on unemployment entitlement and what role the state has in providing it. When we look at other people’s points of view in an attempt to become objective we are only getting part of the story. The vast majority of people whose views we have to delve into to understand normative theory are people unknown to us who we have limited knowledge about and whose viewpoints will not be fully expressed, therefore making it impossible to be objective.
When applying this method to the study of politics it is unlikely someone who has a conservative mindset going into their studies will be able to fully grasp a liberal mindset and for that reason will be unable to be completely objective. Rawls’ contractual model sets basic primary rules by members of a community who have supressed knowledge of their own subjective, possess knowledge of people and society, and members must also have restrained motivation, lack envy and have mutual disinterest. This once again would be impossible to result in an objective outcome as there is no possible way to guarantee that an individuals normative thinking is not being compromised by their knowledge of their subjective or that their motivation is truly being restrained. Various factors such as race, gender, sexuality, etc can have a motivational impact on an individual’s normative thinking.
When this model is applied to the study of politics a person’s background will no doubt influence their normative thinking towards certain groups or organisations e. g. it is unlikely an immigrant would be in favour of a political party whose policies include removing all immigrants from the party’s nation and therefore it is improbable, whether it be consciously or subconsciously, they will be impartial towards them in their studies. Another problem with studying politics objectively is due to the information which is used for research purposes. I fully agree that politics should be studied by the use of scientific methods but how accurate and objective can these methods really be? These methods should result in facts and only facts and have no values what so ever. Facts can be proven thus making them objective as they are both stable and dependable. On the other hand values are simply a matter of opinion and therefore subjective. So to study politics objectively there must be a structured look at empirical evidence. ‘Since science is based on the distinction between fact and opinion, scientists must provide information about how observations were made and analysed so that someone else can check our work. ’
The checking of work Bond is referring to is the replication of the work as to further develop the scientific theory the work is referring to. This is difficult in political science as it is particularly hard to replicate the research accurately. Failure to replicate the work exactly can end in producing different results which makes the observations null and void or at least makes them unknown. If the measures are not valid indicators then they become undependable which means they cannot be put together with other works in an attempt to build a theory.
In conclusion it is not possible to study politics objectively largely down to the under laying personal beliefs a person holds to particular political problems or political situations. These beliefs will inevitably have some kind of influence over the persons conclusions about their political studies. As Bernard Yack said ‘Since we need to call on our emotions to help us judge the value of competing proposals, we must be willing to accept the risks that will mislead us as well. ’
