C. Factors of Confusion in Politics

C. Factors of Confusion in Politics

 

(1) Confusion between Facts and Values

 

There are several reasons why it has been difficult to develop a scientific conceptual framework in political science research, but as mentioned in the early part of this book, the confusion between facts and values seems to be the most important reason. The distinction between facts and values in theoretical discussions has been most delicately and sensitively discussed in the field of philosophy, particularly in ethics. For researchers who are not familiar with such subtle distinctions, the ambiguous and mixed propositions of political science involving facts and values can cause a lot of confusion.

 

To understand the distinction between facts and values, first look at the following:

 

           (A) One should prevent a big truck from hitting a child.

           (B) A big truck is hitting a child.

 

(A) is a value proposition, and (B) is a factual proposition. At this level, it might not be difficult to distinguish between values and facts. But what about the following?

 

           (C) Historically, many mass murderers have received honor.

           (D) Many mass murderers are allowed to receive honor.

 

(C) appears to be a factual proposition on the surface. However, many people oppose proposition (C) because it is often read as (D) in practice. Moreover, this is not a huge misconception. This is because, in many cases, those who state (C) subtly imply (D). Thus, we tend to downplay the actual cases of mass murderers receiving honor in history because we believe that mass murderers should not be considered honorable.

 

In political science, when such issues accumulate, to use the initial analogy, there arises a problem of remaining silent about the fact that the truck has injured a child and speaking as if it never happened, from the perspective of needing to prevent a truck from hitting a child. These are called 'naturalistic fallacy' and 'moralistic fallacy.' Assuming that proposition (C) does not subtly contain an intention of justification, deriving (D) from (C) and condemning it as "supporting mass murderers" is a naturalistic fallacy. On the other hand, implicitly inferring that trucks do not hit children (fact) because they should not hit children (value) is a moralistic fallacy. Such errors can be easily found in political claims around us, such as denying the Pareto principle because people should be equal, or believing that all people make rational judgments because democracy is right.

 

Such basic understanding can often be somewhat difficult to distinguish, but in each area of social science, facts and values are even more intricately mixed, making it difficult to separate them. For example, the concept of 'Homo Economicus' assumed in economics contains both factual and value aspects. The mainstream economic concept of economic man, who pursues his material interests in a rational and selfish manner, is factual in that it implicitly explains many social behaviors of people. However, it also has a value-oriented aspect in that it can underestimate activities such as non-profit relief work when understanding humans in this way. The concept of 'natural state,' often discussed in political science and political philosophy, also contains both facts and values. On the factual side, assuming atomized individuals is an inevitable abstraction process for some factual explanation, similar to assuming an ideal gas in physical chemistry. On the value side, by assuming atomized individuals as a starting point for explanation, a value assessment of the state or political organization may follow. If humans initially existed as atomized individuals, it is assumed that individuals could have survived without a state or political organization, and to that extent, the state or political organization could be unnecessary.

 

Among these, even social scientists who are familiar with abstract concept distinctions are most often confused by the distinction between value phenomena and value judgments. This is the issue of distinguishing between 'facts about ideology' (value phenomena) and 'ideology as a value' (value judgment), which was mentioned earlier in this book. For example, the fact that Peter criticizes Kevin (value phenomenon) and my joining in on that criticism (value judgment) are different from each other. Although value phenomena and value judgments are in principle clearly different, when facing sensitive and complex social situations, there is a tendency to easily confuse the two. For instance, when confronted with Japan denying the forced mobilization of comfort women despite the testimonies of multiple survivors and clear evidence, it becomes difficult for us to pause our criticism of Japan while calmly thinking, "Japan is reversing the 2015 Korea-Japan comfort women agreement, in which they acknowledged the involvement of the Japanese military in the past and expressed sympathy for the government's responsibility." Instead of stopping at seeing a fact as a value phenomenon, it leads to a value judgment (criticizing Japan). However, if one is interested in the scientific laws of political phenomena, they should be able to suspend value judgments and focus solely on value phenomena. This is because all human actions occur in the process of pursuing some value. And before that, they should be able to distinguish between the two well.

 

Early on, A.D. Lindsay made such an observation. Lindsay said, "A political theorist should first be interested in understanding the state as it is in reality, and should be concerned with the actual operating ideologies, i.e., those that make people persistently obey a particular political form or, on the contrary, destroy the political forms they are accustomed to and construct new ones, as they sufficiently operate within people's minds." In addition, he argued that if the ideals or ideologies, which are the subject of political theory, are mere artificial concepts without effective influence on our real lives, then it would be a trivial issue; however, if they realistically operate within people's minds and become effective guidelines for realistic political actions, then such ideologies are not mere ideals or ideologies, but facts and realities that political theory should deal with. He called them "operative ideals." One of the three capacities, the ideological capacity, precisely describes these "operative ideals." And in doing so, judgments about what is right or wrong are initially excluded.

 

However, in many political science studies, the distinction between value phenomena and value judgments is still not sufficiently carefully differentiated. For example, there are many analyses suggesting that when an authoritarian political regime faces an economic crisis, the backlash leads to political change towards democracy. However, there is no guarantee that the civilian democratic government that replaces the authoritarian government will better address the severe economic issues. In other words, such analyses are influenced by value judgments about authoritarian and democratic political systems. When Francis Fukuyama constantly criticizes the role of family and kinship as units of political interaction and explains that they are overcome to form the state, his political stance within the explanation does not fully account for all phenomena but merely evaluates them.

 

 

(2) Self-Imposed Constraints of Theory and Social Science

 

Not only is it difficult to sufficiently and elaborately distinguish between value phenomena and value judgments, but political science (or social science) also provides another excuse for mixing the two. The 'self-fulfilling prophecy' mentioned earlier is exactly that, which leads to the 'existence constraint of theory.' In short, a self-fulfilling prophecy means that the prejudices we have in advance affect our behavior, inducing others to exhibit the characteristics and actions we initially expected.

 

A common example is when a rumor spreads that a particular bank is going to fail, causing people to rush to the bank to withdraw their deposits, which in turn actually causes the bank to fail, or when a single remark from the Federal Reserve Chairman during an economic crisis causes the global economy to fluctuate. On the other hand, the existence constraint of theory means that political science theories are inevitably constrained by the situation in which the theory is placed, as researchers inevitably involve their own prejudices and value concepts when recognizing political phenomena, leading to evaluative choices, and thus inevitably including ideological characteristics in political theories. If the theory's self-fulfilling prophecy is when the theory changes the situation, the existence constraint is when the situation influences the theory. The two are like two sides of a coin that cannot be separated, and the effect in social science is the same. It means that it is impossible to exclude value bias from theory.

 

There is some validity to this insight, but it does not necessarily provide enough reason to equate political science entirely with political ideology. To say that it is impossible to create a neutral political science due to self-fulfilling prophecies is like saying that one cannot create a general theory of baseball's motion due to quantum mechanics' uncertainty principle or the butterfly effect. Why is that? Firstly, it is a question of how much self-fulfilling prophecies can be generalized, and accordingly, the extent of the ideological bias that can be generalized is also important.

 

If self-fulfilling prophecies can be generalized to the extent that it is impossible to create a neutral political science theory, then in all societies, whenever someone spreads the word that a specific bank is failing, that bank should always be in crisis, and every single remark made by the Federal Reserve Chairman should always be realized and amplified. If they say that interest rates will rise, then interest rates should always rise significantly first, and if they mention that rates will fall, the market interest rates should always drop significantly first. However, this is not the case in reality.

 

If someone's statement about a particular bank going bankrupt has a negative impact on the bank's existence but only affects its stock price by less than 1% in many cases, it can be understood to have a similar significance as the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics on the motion of a flying baseball. Although the Federal Reserve Chairman's interest rate remarks always have an impact on interest rates, if there is no general rule that can be stated about how much of an impact they have, it is similar to the butterfly effect influencing the motion of a flying baseball.

 

The important thing is the extent to which self-fulfilling prophecies distort or damage the neutrality of a theory. The influence of self-fulfilling prophecies in political science research is certainly greater than the influence of the uncertainty principle on classical physics. However, it does not seem that this would completely prevent the formation of a significantly neutral political science theoretical framework or make it possible only to a very limited extent.

So, how is neutral political science specifically possible? The direct answer to that question is the main content of this book.