ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that an alternative approach facilitates the exploration of both the normative and empirical questions actually raised about policy value judgments. In political and social theory generally, the neglect of ethics and normative discourse in modern ogranizational life has been an enduring theme. The scientific approach is an important step toward the development of a dynamic methodology designed to facilitate a dialectical interplay between empirical and normative processes in organizational policy-making. The analysis of practical reason begins with the recognition that normative and scientific discourse are two distinct types of reason, each with its own logic and purpose. Fundamentally, the study of practical reason represents an effort to circumvent the methodological pitfalls of the fact-value separation, without necessarily resolving the underlying epistemological problems that it poses. Accordingly, organizational theorists must begin to confront the less scientific, more interpretive dimensions of policy evaluation and the methodological problems they imply.
