ABSTRACT
Social science began as, and in fundamental respects continues to be, a 'moral science'; an attempt to create an ethically justifiable public policy on a secular and materialist basis. The new moral science proposed by writers such as Hobbes, was based on a novel approach to the public realm. The new seventeenth century moral science was mechanical, rational, egoistic, individualistic and egalitarian in its orientation. With the massive post-war success and stability of liberal government, the nineteenth century forms of summum bonum morality have lost much of their appeal both in and outside the discipline. And, with this faith gone, the alternative ethical vision in sociology, the Nietzschean strand represented by Weber and Foucault, has come to dominate most of the more fashionable forms of sociological theory. The nihilism offers little place for a public ethic for research practice; room for critique but not for constructive comment or collaboration.
