ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that if social science is to understand both everyday life and the work of professionals, it needs to overcome its resistance to normativity, both as part of its object of study and within its own practice or discourse. It also argues that social science's dominant understanding of the nature of values is flawed, and that its dichotomous treatments of fact and value are unsustainable where issues of health or flourishing or suffering concerned. The chapter discusses whether some valuations-for example, about well-being-might have universal applicability or whether all such judgements are culturally specific. It examines that acting ethically requires attentiveness to the specificities of the other and their context, and go on to illustrate this in relation to care and dignity. The chapter critiques poststructuralism's own difficulties with normativity. Social science deals with normativity, it tends to treat people's sentiments, concerns and judgements just as contingent facts about them and their societies.
