Collective goods, neglected goods: dealing with methodological failure in the social sciences

Abstract

This book argues that mainstream social scientists have failed to be useful because of misguided efforts to use objectivist methods employed in the natural sciences - of treating humans as "things". It argues that the attempt to imitate the objectivism of natural scientists has caused social scientists to both neglect human collective goals and to overlook a virtual gold mine of empirical data which exists because humans can communicate their feelings, beliefs, and personal histories. This wealth of data exists because of the extraordinary amount of information humans possess due to their ability to interpret and remember their own experiences. Part 1 of the book discusses the ways in which objectivism has led to the undue neglect of human social goals across the social sciences. Part 2 deals with objectivist failures by using models where motivation depends equally upon all important social goals. Cooperative efforts are suggested, perhaps by using alternative organizational and institutional arrangements where universities would reorganize the social sciences into single divisions of human sciences