The heart of discovery
“Neutrality is a fiction but an indispensable one.”
This catchy claim headlined an article the philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah, wrote for The Atlantic in 2023. Referencing a range of roles in public life from judges and journalists to bureaucrats and academics, Appiah contends that the roles we play in civic life can never be disentangled fully from our personal values.
He goes on to pose two interconnected questions:
- Given the importance of these values shouldn’t they inform everything we do?
- “Why shouldn’t we all just put our cards on the table and be open about what’s in our hearts?”
That sounds like a very sensible course of action. Yet, I would venture a guess that if you were to ask social scientists how what’s “in their hearts” informs their research you may in several instances be met with uncomfortable silence.
Although the so-called ‘qualitative turn’ in the social sciences has been part of a broader effort to (among other things) acknowledge the influence of ‘the researcher’ on every aspect of the scientific process, I still routinely hear colleagues emphasising the centrality of neutrality and/or objectivity in their work. It is also worth noting that professional claims to ‘greater’ neutrality and objectivity are often harnessed to reinforce the authority of scientists as well as the relative superiority of their ways of knowing and understanding the world.
While perfect or comprehensive neutrality and objectivity are certainly beyond our reach, I agree with Appiah that they present valuable aspirations or ideals. It is, however, also important to own the fact that these aspirations are more explicitly complicated in the social sciences where researchers – who are themselves people – study other people “as individuals, communities and societies; their behaviours and interactions with each other and with their built, technological and natural environments” (Academy of Social Sciences). The scientific tradition has seen the development of various methods and processes that enable us to discover knowledge in ways that make both the merits and limitations of our findings clear and useful to others, but as Arthur Holmes aptly notes “science is an interpretive activity, therefore somewhat provisional and still fallible like all human knowledge.”
Neutrality, objectivity and/or moral clarity?
Colin Holmes and David Lindsay remind us that whenever we engage in knowledge discovery, we take a position – assumed or otherwise – about our responsibilities. We occupy a moral position whether consciously or by virtue of our intuitive way of being in the world. In short, research is always a value-laden pursuit, and it is important that researchers – or anyone seeking to discover and steward knowledge – takes the time to clarify and articulate the moral position they occupy.
Rather than clinging to opaque claims of neutrality and objectivity or going with the flow of a blanket rejection of the very possibility of these ideals, an alternative focus as proposed by Appiah and others would be “moral clarity”: An intentional peeling away of layers of qualifications, expertise, theory, methods and formative narratives to acknowledge the ways who we are and what we value both centre and shape our discovery and stewardship of knowledge. A commitment to moral clarity is necessary but not sufficient as the quality and outworkings thereof depends on the understanding about what is right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, good and bad, just and unjust that underpins it. Our moral orientation is not merely based on our own desires, preferences or decisions but reaches beyond us to standards by which they can be judged. One invaluable anchor in enacting a Christian commitment to moral clarity is love.
Placing an ethic of love at the heart of discovery
In Biblical Critical Theory, Chris Watkin describes love – not enlightenment, equality, freedom, justice, power, respect or tolerance – as the epicentre of a “distinctively Christian way of being in the world”. Drawing on the work of John Milbank, Jacques Ellul and others, Watkin juxtaposes an ethic of love with an ethic of violence, highlighting how modern political thought and social theory are built on an understanding of reality and being that centres violence, whereas a Christian perspective centres love as “the original law of human social being” and positions violence as its negation.
Watkin is careful not to conflate power and violence rather differentiating between “power expressed in and as violence and power expressed in and as love” emphasising that despite their conflation in many branches of critical theory (For example, see Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed), these positions are not symmetrical.
Within a Christian understanding of reality and being, love is primary and fundamental. An ethic of love, as defined by Watkin, presents a compelling alternative to the reduction of the social – as well as our attempts to study and understand it – to a brute will to power. Instead a Christian or biblical lens foregrounds a will to charity (agapé), that places “self-giving rather than libido dominandi (will-to-power) at the heart of reality”. A will to agapé underscores that love is itself a transcendent reference point and thus as humans we proceed with humility knowing that while we may endeavour to love and serve God and neighbour we always fall short of the fullness of love as expressed in the very nature of God.
The rule of love and social science
In seeking to discover and steward knowledge Christianly, love is not merely one positionality, ethic or attitude among many we might also choose, to quote Watkin again: “…in the Christian world; [love] sets the rules for how that world is structured and functions in its entirety.” As individuals, communities and societies we are defined by what we choose to love. Augustine helpfully boils what may seem like a cacophony of potential competing loves down to two: We either love God or we love self, and we are formed or deformed – ordered or disordered – accordingly. Against this backdrop, Watkin makes a case for love as a tool of both personal analysis and social analysis. As individuals and societies, we are shaped by what we love not by our abstract beliefs or ideals about the world. In this paradigm we conceive of humans as lovers rather than merely as thinkers and actively grapple with how our common loves shape individual lives as well as how our societies hold together.
Far from being an abstract notion or reference point, an ethic of love helpfully frames various practical considerations we encounter throughout any (social) scientific process. Building on a framing of love as a tool of personal and social analysis, Holmes and Lindsay challenge us to consider what the aims, purpose (why), objects (what), conduct (how), fruits (to what end), and application (so what) of research would look like if they were governed by the rule of love:
Why? The purpose and aims of social research
Research or knowledge discovery should increase understanding of the world through robust accounts and theories that generate practical ways to improve life and foster greater understanding and appreciation of Creation without degrading our social or natural environment. It should also expand our self- and mutual understanding while reducing exploitation, marginalisation, and other dehumanising circumstances. The aims of research ideally contribute to the improvement of human existence and/or relief of suffering by increasing our understanding of the past and present.
What you do or don’t study
Carefully considering what you do or do not study in relation to the potential consequences for those you conduct the research with or on as well as society more widely. Within reasonable limits, researchers bear a moral responsibility for the potential consequences and applications of their findings and thus need to consider what they choose to investigate accordingly.
How? Conduct in research and knowledge discovery
A Christian metaphysic calls for research conduct that is egalitarian, respecting the rights of all people and engaging participants/collaborators with a commitment to minimise harm and wherever possible maximise benefit by being of service. The inherent limitations of our capacity for observation, reasoning etc. mean that, while we make every disciplined and rigorous effort to see and interpret aspects of reality as accurately as possible, we will never be able to do so comprehensively. These limitations, which necessitate humility, apply to individuals and entire disciplines. Research must also be conducted and reported honestly and openly within the limits of agreed upon confidentiality and anonymity.
To what end? Judge the tree by its fruits
The outcomes of knowledge discovery cannot be known before or during an inquiry process, but a Christian researcher seeks to glorify God by either displaying the glory of Creation, minimising suffering or exploitation and/or contributing to the flourishing of humans as well as the natural world. As such we also have a responsibility to share such findings with relevant practitioners as well as policy- and decision-makers.
So what? The application or stewardship of discovered knowledge
In social science or any knowledge discovery process, we have a responsibility to be concerned with the potential and actual application of what we find, as well as how we might translate this in practice to leave the world around us better than we found it. As such building bridges between social science and practice is a central, rather than peripheral concern when attempting to think Christianly about knowledge discovery and stewardship.
Allowing the centre to hold
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a novel which weaves together parallel journeys of discovery, the protagonist Charlie Marlow says of the General Manager he encounters:
“But the wilderness had found him out early…I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core….”
The General Manager’s hollow core seemingly leaves him vulnerable in this complex landscape. In the absence of clear reference points and anchors he is formed and deformed by his context rather than discovering or stewarding it. In revisiting this tale, I am reminded that the necessary fictions of neutrality and objectivity also have their shadow sides. If they are harnessed to demand a faux denial of the self in a misguided attempt at eliminating personal bias, we erode and muddy the very wellspring we are admonished to guard.
As the sociologist, Christian Smith, contends, “The very best of science […] involves, not the detachment of scientists but precisely the opposite: their deep personal involvement.” He paints a compelling picture of the centrality of a moral clarity in scientific inquiry that allows us to harness how who we are – and what’s in our hearts – centres and shapes knowledge discovery:
“The generation and comprehension of knowledge entails not simply the following of formal rules and procedures […] it requires of knowers personal commitment to truth, capacities to perceive the value of potential discoveries active engagement in inquiry, the exercise of artful skills, reliance on tacit understanding, the making of judgements of belief […] appreciation for the beauty of the known world, provisional and wise trust in other knowledgeable authorities, passion for and joy in discovery, and the taking of responsibility for reporting knowledge well. All of these are clearly activities of a thoroughly personal nature.”
The social sciences encompass activities of a thoroughly personal nature. Within a Christian understanding of reality and being our personhood is liberatingly derivative. We are made in the image of an absolute, personal, loving God. One could also say, we are made in the image of Love in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Researching Christianly frees us to embrace being open about “what’s in our hearts” knowing it presents an opportunity to look – and point – beyond ourselves to the eternity that’s been set there.
References and further reading
Academy of Social Sciences (n.d), “What is social science?” https://acss.org.uk/what-is-social-science/
Appiah, K. A. (2023). Neutrality is a fiction – but an indispensable one. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/neutrality-journalism-jurisprudence-carl-schmitt-moral-clarity/673757/
Ellul, J. (1978). Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective. A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd.
Freire, P. (2017). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin Classics.
Holmes, A. F. (1983). Contours of a World View. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Holmes, A. F. (1984). Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions. Inter-Varsity Press.
Holmes, A. F. (1997). Fact, Value and God. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Holmes, C., & Lindsay, D. (2018). In Search of Christian Theological Research Methodology. SAGE Open, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018809214
Milbank, J. (2006). Theology and social theory: Beyond secular reason (2nd ed.). Blackwell Publishing.
Poythress, V. S. (2011). Redeeming Sociology: A God-Centered Approach. Crossway.
Poythress, V. S. (2023). Redeeming Reason: A God-Centered approach. Crossway.
Sertillanges O.P., A. G. (1998). The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods (M. Ryan, Trans.). The Catholic University of America Press.
Smith, C. (2011). What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up. The University of Chicago Press.
Watkin, C. (2017). Thinking through creation: Genesis 1 and 2 as Tools of Cultural Critique. P&R Publishing.
Watkin, C. (2022). Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture. Zondervan Academic.