Читать книгу Contemporary Sociological Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 73

The objection to the use of teleological principles in scientific theory is in general well taken. There are two reasons, however, why it has much less force in this case.

First, the methodological individualism which characterizes the theory to be presented here vitiates much of the antiteleology case. The action to be explained is at a higher level of social organization than the level at which purpose is specified. If it were not, if the theory were holistic, that is, remaining at the level of the system, then introduction of teleology at that level would explain a component of the system in terms of the function it performs for the system. This assumes what should be problematic for social theory―the integration and organization of the system. Such explanations, or “theories,” are labeled functionalism in social science, and functionalist explanations are subject to all the objections made against teleological explanations. […]

A second reason why a purposive theory of action at the level of individuals and based on a teleological principle is not harmful to social science, but desirable, lies in the peculiar relation of social science to its object of study. Social scientists are human beings, and the object of their study is actions of human beings. This means that any other kind of theory of human behavior poses paradox for the theorists themselves. The paradox can best be seen by supposing a fully developed theory of human behavior which is not based on purposive action but on a causal framework into which individual goals or purposes never enter. […]

The paradox arises because such theories imply that the theory itself, a result of purposive action, can have no effect on future action. Any attempt to use the theory purposefully will consequently be, according to the theory, destined to fail. A further paradox lies in the image of man implied by a nonpurposive theory. Since the conception is one into which purpose, goal, and will do not enter, it is incompatible with the very orientation of the theorist, who sets as a goal the development of such a theory. All of this arises because the subjects of the theory are persons, and that includes the theorists and the users of the theory.

There is another closely related value to basing social theory on purposive actions of individuals. In a certain range of scholarly endeavor, including ethics, moral philosophy, political philosophy, economics, and law, theory is based on an image of man as a purposive and responsible actor. Among these fields there exists a degree of fruitful interchange which has been denied to most sociologists, simply because sociologists have not chosen to ground their theoretical work in that same way. Moral philosophers from Kant to Rawls have grounded their work in a conception of purposive responsible individuals, as have political philosophers such as Bentham, Rousseau, Mill, and Locke. Some theorists, such as Bentham and Hayek, have been able to span all these fields because of the common conceptual base. Social theory which uses that base stands to profit from the intellectual discourse this common ground makes possible.

It is also important to answer the objection that individuals do not always act rationally. I will not dispute the point, for it is clear that persons sometimes act self-destructively and at other times act with questionable rationality. I will say this, however: Since social scientists take as their purpose the understanding of social organization that is derivative from actions of individuals and since understanding an individual’s action ordinarily means seeing the reasons behind the action, then the theoretical aim of social science must be to conceive of that action in a way that makes it rational from the point of view of the actor. Or put another way, much of what is ordinarily described as nonrational or irrational is merely so because the observers have not discovered the point of view of the actor, from which the action is rational. […]