ABSTRACT
In my experience, social scientists are just as confused and confusing on the topic of ethics today as they ever were. I will give some examples of this later in the chapter. What I want to do first is to explain what I take to be some of the key problems with the way this issue has been formulated under the influence of Weber and, before that, the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Later, I will show how current writings in the social sciences deal with ethical issues through genre conventions that have grown out of this tradition.
