Beyond Relativism: Science and Human Values

Book by Masters, Roger D.

Masters (government, Dartmouth Coll.) first sets up the "straw man" of a value-free science and then laments that it has led to relativism and subjectivism in regard to values generally. He aims to show that the traditional values "found in all major religions and ethical doctrines" can be shown by science--when properly understood--to be implicit in human nature and that therefore no gap separates fact and value, "is" and "ought," science and ethics. The book has the appearance and apparatus of a scholarly tour through intellectual history from the ancients to the present, but it is a confused conflation of ideas and concepts that does not come anywhere near its goal; in the end, it tells us nothing substantive about how science can help us cope with the complexity and difficult ethical choices of "post-modern" life.
- Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Mgt. Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.