Value-free scholarly inquiry presents the social status quo as natural rather than constructed

Evidence

One can no more dominate a nature that is infused with value than subordinate and transform the Other whose human and cultural worth and moral constitution create a similar demand. More importantly, however, and as some social scientists (neo-Marxists and nonmainstream sociologists) have argued, the separation that denudes intellectual/scientific inquiry of value “is ethically untenable,” for it “disengages the observer from the social responsibility that should accompany his accounts, and it results in the status quo being presented as somehow natural and real, rather than as constructed and partisan.” This ethical dimension, indeed moral accountability, can hardly be overemphasized. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 731

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to the critique of neutral observation that underlies all three published articles’ stances on the constructedness of norms.
• XREF: connects to: The positive-normative split is a vehicle for exporting disciplinary values — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 582; Economists present their discipline as value-free truths above class interests — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 51