Social Problems and the Mores

Abstract

T HE TERM social problem indicates not merely an observed phenomenon but the state of mind of the observer as well. Value judgments define certain conditions of human life and certain kinds of behavior as social problems; there can be no social problem without a value judgment.' When our attitude toward a phenomenon is involved in our concept of it, logical difficulties arise which can only be avoided by shifting to an inclusive point of view which enables us to study both the thing and our attitude toward it. It is the purpose of the present paper to suggest such a point of view for the study of social problems. Various attempts to treat social problems in a scientific manner have proved useless because they have dealt only with the objective side of social problems and have failed to include the attitude which constituted them problems. The attitude, the value judgment, is the subjective side of the social problem, and its existence renders meaningless any purely objective account of social problems. In spite of all attempts to define social problems objectively and denotatively, value judgments inevitably intrude themselves into the discussion. Indeed, value judgments must be brought in somehow, for there is no other way of identifying a condition as a social problem than by passing a value judgment upon it. Because they have failed to define clearly their object of study, which is properly the condition called a social problem in relation to the attitude of the person who considers it a problem, sociologists have failed to achieve a scientifically defensible treatment of social problems. Two errors, both of which stem from failure to take the inclusive view of which we speak, vitiate the work of those who have tried to deal with social problems scientifically. (A) In attempting to exclude