478 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY 



by custom, or historical and social circumstances, but by the 

 psychological and biological structure of man and his relation 

 to the great natural factors of his environment. Thus our need 

 for the family is rooted in the biological and psychological 

 character of the child, and again the need of each individual for 

 a certain freedom of life is rooted in his individual character- 

 istics and personal power of deliberate choice. 



Thus two facts emerge: First, the psychological foundation 

 of the social sciences provides them with certain stable goals 

 of human behavior which are valuable in themselves and which 

 cannot be eradicated or fundamentally altered by social insti- 

 tutions or circumstances. They are stable values which can be 

 objectively established by the ordinary methods of biology 

 and psychology. The social scientist in this way has criteria by 

 which to evaluate other variable intermediate goals and means. 

 " Democracy," " prosperity," " peace " can be evaluated in a 

 given society by finding out whether such intermediate goals 

 really contribute to the attainment of the more stable ones. 

 " Democracy " may serve to promote ultimate biological and 

 psychological values in one society at one period of history, but 

 not in another society or at a different time. Thus both sub- 

 ordinate ends and means in social life can be scientifically 

 evaluated by the social scientist if he accepts from natural 

 science certain fixed values as criteria. 



Two difficulties can be raised against this contention, al- 

 though both appear somewhat outmoded in light of develop- 

 ments in contemporary natural science. Indeed they are sur- 

 vivals in the social sciences of influences from the nineteenth 

 century views of natural scientists. 



The first difficulty is that a science of social values is im- 

 possible because it implies that human beings can make free 

 choices of means to ends, and free choice destroys the determin- 

 ism required for any scientific theory." Surely it is realized 



^^ Sociologists today, however, speak very modestly about their actual ability to 

 predict. Cf. for example the discussion in Robert F. Bales, " Small-Group Theory 

 and Research," Merton, Broom, Cottrell, op. cit., pp. 293-305. After admitting 

 that " The nearest thing to this kind of publicly exposed, practical, naturalistic 



