ABSTRACT
The following contribution will explore some of the implications of the explicit and persistent critique of positivism in On the Beginning of Social Inquiry, also with reference to Habermas’ charge of relativism brought against Blum and McHugh’s work in the 1980s. It will suggest that the collapse of truth, and the related loss of a particular version of honesty, does not necessarily result in a nihilistic moral relativism. In order to pursue these implications the chapter will look at honesty as a topic. At first this might appear to be a peculiar choice, especially given that honesty is theoretically or philosophically an almost antiquated concept, closely associated with virtue ethics, and also deontology. Nonetheless, honesty will be regarded as relevant in this case as it bridges a concern for factual truths and the moral desirability, or even the necessity, of adhering to such truths. Put differently, honesty is founded, on the one hand, on the understanding that truth is speakable and communicable – that is, that a speaker can be truthful about some things – and, on the other hand, on the claim that doing so is somehow morally relevant and preferable to not being truthful. Consequently, I will draw on OBSI to speak of honesty as a topic of analysis, but furthermore, this chapter will also outline how McHugh et al. not only critique a particular form of deceptiveness relating to positivist social inquiry, but also relativize universalist moral claims about honesty, and propose, or even recommend, a particular version of honesty. This combination of both formulating and relativizing honesty will be shown to be commensurable, rather than self-destructive.
