ABSTRACT
Our primary purpose in this text is to set out and defend a distinctive set of views on these issues, charting a not uncontentious course for the future of social inquiry. Like any two philosophers we are subject to differences of opinion, including differences on some of the topics treated in the text. However, on the broad questions just distinguished we find ourselves able to present a common front. We argue against cultural relativism, for humanism and (with reservations) individualism, and against the view that social science is undermined by evaluative commitments: such commitments as it may have to make are not subversive of the enterprise. But what of the differences between us, and the problem which these raise in a collaborative production? Our solution has been to allocate the responsibility for each chapter to an individual author. Graham Macdonald is responsible for the first and fourth chapters, which deal respectively with the cross-cultural question and the fact-value one. Philip Pettit is responsible for Chapter 2, which discusses the humanism-scientism issue, and Chapter 3, which covers the issue between individualism and collectivism. This introduction was penned by Philip Pettit but is sponsored fully by both authors. The four chapters of the book are standardised in substance and style, so as to make what we hope is a cohesive text. However, they can also be treated as more or less independent essays. They all presuppose some understanding of the matter treated in this introduction, especially Chapters 1 and 4, but we have left sufficient overlap between the different chapters to make it possible for them to be read separately.
