Max Weber: Selections in Translation

In what follows, except where a different sense is either explicitly mentioned or obvious from the context, the term ‘value-judgment’ is to be understood as referring to ‘practical’ evaluations of a phenomenon which is capable of being influenced by our actions as worthy of either condemnation or approval. The problem of the ‘freedom’ of a particular science from value-judgments of this kind – that is, the acceptability and meaning of this logical principle – is in no way identical with the entirely different question which we shall briefly consider first: the question whether, in the academic context, the teacher's practical value-judgments (whether based on ethical standards, cultural ideals or some other kind of ‘world view’) ought or ought not to be ‘acknowledged’. This question cannot be discussed in scientific terms, since it is itself entirely dependent on practical value-judgments and so irresoluble. Even if we only mention the extremes, two positions have been represented: (a) the view that, while it is quite correct to distinguish between, on the one hand, logically demonstrable or empirically observable facts and, on the other, the value-judgments which are derived from practical standards, ethical standards or world views, nevertheless, in spite of (or perhaps even just because of) this, both categories of problem come within the scope of academic teaching; (b) the view that, even if this distinction could not be carried through with complete logical consistency, nevertheless it is desirable as far as possible to keep all practical value-questions in the background in one's teaching.