PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL-SCIENCE - ROOT,M

Michael Root argues, in Philosophy of Social Science, that social scie ntific investigations do nor and cannot meet the liberal requirement o f ''neutrality'' most familiar to social scientists in the form of Max Weber's requirement of value-freedom. He argues, moreover, that this is for ''institutional,'' not idiosyncratic, reasons: methodological d emands (e.g., of validity) impel social scientists to pass along into their ''objective'' investigations the values of the people, groups, a nd cultures they are studying In this paper, I consider the implicatio ns of Root's claims for the use of social scientific results in the fo rmation of policy in a democratic society In particular, I argue that Root's results amplify familiar ''post-modernist'' conclusions: there is no ''neutral'' and ''objective'' basis for policy-making.