ABSTRACT
A great part of the considerable scholarly contribution of Peter Berger deals in one way or another with the ethical implications of sociological investigation. There are moral and ethical challenges posed to the ‘value-free’ social scientist by the perverse fact that his work inevitably contributes to the practical political dialogue. The social scientist may legitimate or delegitimate governments, corporate directors, religious elites, or entire academic fields of inquiry. He may inspire a new religiosity or encourage the collapse of cherished human myths and traditions. Perhaps more than any other profession, the sociologist’s vocation entails a continual and unavoidable tension between the aspiration to objective, value-free science and the equally obvious need to scrutinize the value-laden uses to which the sociological enterprise is inextricably tied. As Berger himself put it;
History is not only a succession of power structures but of theoretical edifices, and every one of the latter was first thought up by somebody. This is so regardless of who conned whom at any given moment - whether it is a case of intellectuals convincing the wielders of power to carry into practice some particular theoretical scheme, or power wielders hiring intellectuals to concoct theories that will legitimate that particular exercise of power ex post facto. In either case, there are intellectuals in the woodpile (1974f: 4).
