37. See Walter Lippman, Essays in the Public Philosophy(Little, Brown, 1955); Norman Wengert, Natural Resources and thePolitical Struggle (Doubleday, 1955); and Paul Appleby, Moralityand Administration in Democratic Government (University ofLouisiana Press, 1950).

38. Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process(Little, Brown, 1964); Wildavsky, Speaking Truth to Power: TheArt and Craft of Policy Analysis (Little, Brown, 1979).

39. Speaking Truth to Power, 19.

40. Brian Fry and Mark Tompkins, "Some Notes on the Do-main of Public Policy Studies," 6 Policy Studies Journal 305-13(1978).

41. Ibid., 311.

42. Lasswell, The Future of Political Science, 41.

FAGTS, VALUES AND RATIONAL DEGISION MAKINGAlex G. Michaios, University of Guelph

ABSTRAGT

This paper introduces some distinctions related to facts andvalues, indicates some of the uses and misuses of these distinctions,and draws conclusions for the problem of rational decision making.A major claim is that everyone but metaphysicians should forgetabout the fact-value distinction and get on with the pursuit of truthand the performance of good deeds.

INTRODUGTION. In this paper I introduce some distinctions re-lated to facts and values, indicate some of the uses and misuses ofthese distinctions, and draw some conclusions for the problem ofrational decision making. The paper addresses the ontological fact-value distinction; the epistemological fact-falsehood distinction; nonsequiturs involved in confusing these distinctions; and possiblemethodological advantages of distinguishing facts and values.Finally, I propose a rule for rational decision making: Forget aboutthe fact-value distinction.

FAGT AND VALUE: ONTOLOGY. Sometimes people talk aboutquestions of fact, factual issues, or factual matters in order toclassify the questions, issues, or matters prior to attempting anyanswers or other assessments. For example, among all the Issuesrelated to the development and use of energy from alternativesources (e.g. coal, oil, gas, uranium, water, biomass, wind, etc.)there are supposed to be some straightforward factual matters suchas how much energy is obtainable from a given amount of one ofthese sources, using a certain technology in a certain period oftime. Even those of us who don't know the answers to such ques-

544

tions are willing to grant that these sorts of questions are factual,if indeed any questions are factual.

To say that a question is factual, involves an issue or matterof fact is obviously not to say that the question is true. It islogically impossible for questions to have truth values, to be trueor false. It is not some sort of defect in questions that they don'tor normally don't have truth values. They have their own uniquelinguistic jobs to do. Declarative sentences do have truth values,and this is their distinguishing feature. Nevertheless, to say thata declarative sentence involves a factual matter or an issue of factis not to say that the sentence is true. While it is logically possi-ble for such a sentence to be true, saying that the sentence in-volves an issue of fact is not the same as saying that it's true. Itis merely to classify the ontological category (ballpark, pigeon hole)of the sentence. For example, the sentence 'Ganada has sevenoperating nuclear reactors' involves a factual matter but the sen-tence may be false. Similarly it may be false that the United Stateshas fifty-four nuclear reactors, although the issue of the existenceor non-existence of the reactors is a factual issue.

One may talk about questions of value, evaluative issues, orevaluative matters in order to classify the questions, issues ormatters prior to attempting any answers or other assessments. Forexample, one may raise the question "Is thermal energy from nuclearfission or burning coal more desirable from the point of view of siteattractiveness?" that is, are coal-burning facilities more or lessesthetically attractive than nuclear reactors?

Again, to say that a question is evaluative, involves an issueor matter of value, is obviously not to say that the question istrue. It is merely to classify the ontological category of the ques-tion. A declarative sentence like "Nuclear reactors are estheticallymore attractive than coal furnaces" involves an evaluative matter,but again the truth or falsity of the sentence doesn't follow fromthe mere fact that it involves an evaluative issue. Some people be-lieve that such sentences are pseudo claims, that although the sen-tence is formally declarative, it can't function as a declarativesentence (can't have a truth value at all). However, even on thisextreme view, to say that a sentence is evaluative, involves a matterof value or an evaluative issue is still not to say that the sentenceis true or false. Indeed, on this extreme view, it is logically im-possible for the sentence to be true or false.

In short, according to some common usage, issues of fact maybe contrasted with issues of value in a purely ontological classifica-tory sense. In this sense, truth or falsity is not at issue. Glassi-fying a matter in this sense is not asserting the truth or falsity ofthe matter. Glassifying an issue in this sense is logically prior tothe question of truth or falsity, and the latter question may noteven arise. For example, the question will not arise if one is onlyinterested in getting a question classified as factual or evaluative,and the question will not arise when an evaluative declarative sen-tence is asserted and its assessor holds the extreme view that suchsorts of sentences cannot have truth values.

545

FAGT AND FALSEHOOD: EPISTEMOLOGY. Sometimes people usethe term "fact" and its cognates as a synonym for "true." For ex-ample, people say things like "As a matter of fact there are severaloperating nuclear reactors in Ontario," "It is a fact that there arenuclear reactors in Ontario," and "In fact there are nuclear reac-tors in Ontario." The last sentence, for example, just means "Intruth there are nuclear reactors in Ontario." The two before thatmay be expressed as "It is true that there are nuclear reactors inOntario." Such usage of the term "fact" is not ontological but isepistemological. The term is used not to designate an ontologicalcategory, but to designate an epistemological assessment or apprais-al.

Thus, in the epistemological sense of "fact," facts are con-trasted with falsehoods, or, more precisely, factual sentences arecontrasted with false sentences because "factual" is regarded assynonymous with "true." In this sense of "fact" to say "In factnuclear reactors are visually more attractive than coal furnaces" isto affirm the truth of the claim that nuclear reactors are visuallymore attractive than coal furnaces. Glearly, those who believe thatevaluative sentences cannot have truth values would insist that asentence like "In fact nuclear reactors are visually more attractivethan coal furnaces" must be self-contradictory. That is, if "infact" is regarded as synonymous with "in truth" and evaluativesentences cannot be true or false, then it is self-contradictory toclaim that it's true that nuclear reactors are more attractive thancoal furnaces and it's not true or false. If it's not true or false,then it's not true.

It would be nice if we had a generally acceptable criterion oftruth. There seems to be general agreement that Tarski's formaldefinition is sound, i.e. a sentence represented by "p" is true ifand only if p, e.g. "John is sick" is a true sentence if and only ifJohn is sick. As a meaning analysis of a common notion of t ruth,this seems to be unexceptional. But it's obviously worthless as acriterion for determining which sentences are true and which arefalse. From the meaning analysis we don't find out how to provethat John is or isn't sick. (The problem is roughly analogous toknowing what it means to bake a cake, but not knowing how to doit.) To solve the criteriological problem of truth, I think one mustappeal to some notion of coherence. Nicholas Rescher's The Coher-ence of Truth is the most recent attempt to carry out such a pro-gram. It's not the sort of program one can expect to just carryout as one carries out the garbage. However, Rescher has takensignificant steps forward.

FROM ONTOLOGY TO EPISTEMOLOGY. Given the two common waysof talking about factual matters, an ontological way in which factsare contrasted with values and an epistemological way in which factsare contrasted with falsehoods, the stage is set for unwarrantedinferences. It is easy to move from the assumption that an issue isa factual matter in the ontological sense of the term 'factual' to thequite different assumption that the issue is factual in the epistemo-logica! sense of the term. In such cases, one starts with an issuethat is ontologically factual and converts it into an epistemological

546

fact, i.e. a truth or true claim, or a falsehood. Whether the con-version is intentional or not, the fallacy of equivocation is commit-ted. One logically cannot derive epistemological appraises of truthor falsity from mere ontological categorization.

The fact (truth) is that several common ways of talking andthinking (in English at least) conspire to drive people to equivocateon the ontological and epistemological uses of the term 'fact.' Forexample, it often happens that when a group meets to discuss aproblem, say, the development of an energy source, one or moremembers thinks it will be helpful to share some factual matters.If there is a thin edge of the wedge leading to complete consensusin a group decision-making situation, so the assumption goes, itmust be at or near the factual side of things. So, by all means,let's lay out some of the facts as soon as possible. The move fromfactual matters to facts here can be a move from ontology to epis-temology. Because factual matters (ontology) tend to be relativelyunproblematic (relative to evaluative matters), the assumption goes,and factual matters are going to be discussed first, facts (epis-temology) are going to be introduced first. The mere descriptionof a claim as factual in the ontological sense tends to soften thepath toward its acceptance as factual in the epistemological sense.

As a second example of how the equivocation arises, con-sider the case of expert advice given by scientists. Suppose it isgranted that there really are experts on matters of scientific fact,e.g. , chemical facts, physical facts, economic facts, etc. At aminimum that means that there is a body of factual (ontology)claims about which so-called experts know more than non-experts.However, because there are some factual matters that clearly arein the province of, say, chemistry (an ontological point) and thereare experts on such matters, it is possible for the expert chemistto claim to assert chemical facts in the epistemological sense of"fact" and get away with it. The nonsequitur runs: Smith is achemical expert, x is a matter of chemical fact (ontologically speak-ing) . So, if Smith claims that x is a chemical fact (ontologicallyyet) then x is a fact (epistemologically speaking, true). In short.Smith's credentials are doing the job (invalidly) that Smith's evi-dence should be doing (validly). We often tell students of intro-ductory logic courses to beware of people with credentials in onefield making claims in another field. We should also tell them tobeware of people with credentials using those credentials instead ofevidence to warrant claims in the field where the credentials areheld.

There is another way in which an equivocation on the term'fact' occurs related to judgments that something is a matter ofscientific fact. When one judges that some issue is scientific oris a matter of science, one might base the judgment on one's know-ledge that there is a body of scientific literature about i t . Forexample, one might think that the question of the thermal energy ofcoal is a scientific question because there is a recognized body ofphysical science literature dealing with precisely this question andrelated questions. The same person might think that the questionof the visual attractiveness of a coal furnace is not scientific be-cause there is (as far as he knows) no recognized body of science

547

dealing with precisely this and related questions. Now he canreason invalidly: Science deals with facts (ontology). There is noscience of visual attractiveness. So, there are no scientific facts(epistemology) of visual attractiveness. Thus, whatever one saysabout visual attractiveness cannot have the status of a scientificfact (truth). Whatever claims about visual attractiveness are, theycannot be true.

A fourth way in which an equivocation on the term "fact"occurs is related to a defective argument for distinguishing empiri-cal facts from values. It is sometimes argued that facts must bedifferent from values because it is possible to get complete agree-ment on the facts of a situation (event, person, thing) but stillhave disagreement about its value. For example, we would be ableto get complete agreement from virtually everyone who knows methat I have a nose. The fact that I have a nose is literally asplain as the nose on my face. We could get agreement on its size,colour, shape, physiological structure and so on. Nevertheless,the argument runs, it would still be possible to have disagreementabout the physical attractiveness of my nose. Some people wouldsay it's a nice nose, others that it's ugly, or plain, superb, classi-cal Greco-Roman, and so on. In short, unlike the fact of my nose,the esthetic value of my nose is open to a variety of opinions. Thefact (truth now) that I have a nose can be established beyondreasonable doubt, but the esthetic value of my nose remains doubt-ful forever. The preceding sentence is crucial. What is being con-trasted in that sentence is not two ontologically distinct types ofthings. Rather, it is the epistemological status of factual claimsthat is being contrasted with evaluative claims. The issue is nowone of truth versus something less than the truth.

To appreciate the weakness of the argument in the secondsentence of the preceding paragraph, consider the following ana-logue. Values must be different from facts because it is possibleto get complete agreement on the value of something but stillhave disagreement about factual aspects of i t. For example, longbefore there was agreement on the facts about things like rainbows,sunsets, mountains, waterfalls and clouds, most people found suchthings not only attractive but often awe-inspiring. It would havebeen possible for two ancient Greeks (or two contemporary folks)to agree that a particular rainbow was beautiful while disagreeingon its origin, colour, size, and shape. Anyone familiar with thehistory of science can probably multiply such cases easily. Anyoneat all can probably think of many more cases in which completeagreement in evaluative issues comes at least as easily as agreementon facts. Glearly there are as many evaluations or judgments ofvalue as there are judgments of fact about which one can getvirtually complete agreement. In principle there must be an infinitenumber, e.g., everyone will agree that I don't have two noses,three, etc. and everyone will agree that I would not be prettierwith two noses, three, etc. There does not seem to be any onto-logical lesson to be learned about facts and values from countingheads regarding things people agree or disagree on readily.

548

A fifth and final way in which an equivocation on the term"fact" occurs is related to standard textbook treatments of rationaldecision-making or action on the Bayesian or estimated utility model.Briefly, according to this view decision-makers are confronted witha set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive possible future states ofaffairs and courses of action. Each combination of state of affairsand action yields an event with a particular value or utility. Byquantifying these values, multiplying these quantities by the prob-abilities of the events that may occur and summing the products ofevery event attached to every action, one can obtain the estimatedvalue of performing that action. A rational actor then is supposedto perform the available action that has the highest estimated value.

What seems to be built into the Bayesian procedure as justdescribed is the assumption of a fact-value dichotomy in the formof a probability-value dichotomy. Rational decision-making andaction on this model requires an amalgamation of two apparentlyontologically distinct kinds of entities, namely, values and proba-bilistic facts or factual probabilities of some sort. But if probabili-ties have some sort of factual status and values don't, then thereis a tendency to regard values as epistemological non-starters.Probability assessments, the assumption goes, may be more or lessaccurate or true, but evaluations are simply given or not. Thelatter is especially the case when the values used in the model arebased on revealed preferences which are uncritically given andaccepted. Again then, we have the unwarranted move from anontological to an epistemological use of "fact."

On top of the objectionable equivocation just described, itshould be noticed that it is a mistake to assume that probabilityassessments do not require evaluations and that evaluations do notinvolve probability (factual) assessments. In order to measure anyprobabilities one must make decisions concerning one's universe ofdiscourse, its appropriate description, the appropriate subset of thetotal universe to be used for any given problem situation and theappropriate methods to be used to make all these decisions. Theseand other decisions involve assessments of the benefits and costsattached to alternative decisions, i.e., the decisions involve evalua-tions. Similarly, the evaluations required on the other side of theBayesian model require epistemological assessments. Without build-ing some sort of information or knowledge component into evaluation,it becomes impossible to distinguish the proverbial Fool's Paradisefrom Real Paradise. In short, uninformed evaluations are worthless.

FROM ONTOLOGY TO METHODOLOGY. If one is not an extremiston evaluative issues, unless one is a metaphysician interested in de-termining the ontological structure of the world, there is probablylittle of interest in the fact-value distinction. On the other hand,the fact-falsity, or better, the truth-falsity distinction is funda-mental. If one can't distinguish truth from falsity, true sentencesfrom false ones, then one runs the risk of eating stones, swimmingin molten lead and making love to ostriches. Being able to dis-tinguish truth from falsity really does have survival value in waysthat being able to distinguish facts from values doesn't. So whyfool around with the metaphysical question?

549

One answer is that it might be the case that if we got anissue correctly categorized ontologically, then we could address itwith the right method. At any rate, we might be able to eliminatesome methods as useless. For example, if one holds an extremeview of evaluative sentences then once one knows that a sentenceis evaluative, one knows that there is no method that can establishthe truth or falsity of the sentence. This is indeed an extremecase, but it illustrates how one can use ontological knowledge tomake methodological decisions. In this extreme case, the decisionis simply to admit the applicability of every method. Given one'sdefinition of evaluative sentences, no method is relevant to estab-lishing their truth or falsity.

Suppose that you do not hold an extreme view. That is,suppose you believe that categorizing a sentence as factual orevaluative leaves the truth status of the sentence undecided butnot undecidable. The question is: Gan it help your epistemologicaltask to know that the sentence involves an ontologically factual orevaluative claim? The only relevant short answer I can think ofnow is that correct ontological classification into the categories ofmatter of fact or value is no panacea. No one should imagine thata solution to the ontological-methaphysica! problem would constitutea major epistemologica! breakthrough.

Gonsider some examples in support of the previous sentence.(1) The ultimate matter of the world is wave-like rather than parti-cle-like. (2) Every innocent human infant should be tortured todeath before the age of four months. (3) A human being wrotethese sentences. (4) A morally good human being wrote these sen-tences. It seems to me, though this is not a knock-down demon-stration, that sentence 1 is a factual claim whose truth is extremelydifficult if not impossible to decide; 2 is an evaluative claim whosetruth will not be granted by anyone but extremists and crazies;3 is a factual claim as uncontroversial as 2; and 4 is more contro-versial than 3, less controversial than 2 and probably not ascontroversial as 1.

Al! I want to do with these four sentences ( l )-(4) is illus-trate and lend some support to my claim that solving the ontologicalstatus problem may leave one with enormous epistemologica! prob-lems, depending on the particular claim to be assessed. The resolu-tion of this issue depends, f irst, on logical resources. For example,consider (5) It is wrong to torture all living babies to death and(6) The negation of a conjunction is logically equivalent to the dis-junction of two negations. 5 is an evaluative sentence whose truthwill be granted by virtually everyone who reads it, while 6 is alogical factual sentence (a sentence stating a logical fact or logicaltruth) whose truth will not be recognizable by everyone or evenmost people. Depending on one's training and methodological re-sources, the evaluative 5 and the factual 6 will be more or lesseasy to assess epistemologically.

Epistemological beliefs also have a crucial role to play in de-termining how useful correct ontological categorization can be. Somefolks believe there can be no certainty concerning the truth orfalsity of empirical sentences. If they are thorough-going episte-

550

mological skeptics, then they will regard empirical claims as inher-ently unjustifiable and hence doubtful. Alternatively, they may beless-than-thorough-going skeptics, holding that one might have com-plete certainty concerning empirical claims although such claims areinherently fallible. For example, they may say that sentences like'There's only one doctor in this town' can be known to be true withcomplete certainty, but they are still liable to be falsified. Theyare still fallible or corrigible but not doubtful. Although 1 findthis view satisfactory, some folks don't. It depends on how onedefines key epistemological terms like 'knowledge,' 'certainty,''complete verification' and so on.

The last important variable that determines how useful correctontological categorization would be in determining the truth statusof any sentence is one's theory of value. With some theories ofvalue, the truth or falsity of evaluative sentences is a routinematter, provided that one is not a thorough-going epistemologicalskeptic. With other theories, as I have already suggested, "truth"and "falsity" just don't apply.

RATIONAL DEGISION MAKING. What I want to do in this finalsection is to suggest a useful procedural rule of rational decisionmaking. The rule is not, as far as I can tell, derivable in a strictsense from the preceding discussion. But it has emerged fairlydirectly in my own mind as a consequence of that discussion. Therule is just this: Forget about the fact-value distinction. It'salmost always a red herring.

Whether the question at issue is epistemological, ontologicalor axiological ( i .e., a question of truth, being or value) one isalmost always wiser to tackle the question directly rather than totry to cut one's ontological pie into facts and values. Martin LutherKing said that the trouble with resorting to violence is that thenthe issue becomes violence. I think that the trouble with resortingto metaphysics is that then the issue becomes metaphysical. Insteadof fighting battles about whether something is true, good or worthdoing, one finds oneself fighting battles about credentials, eitherthe ontological credentials of the issue before one (Is it a matter oftruth or goodness or action?) or the credentials of the disputants.Instead of pressing the question "Are there good reasons for believ-ing, preferring or doing this or that," the red herring question israised "Is this a matter of values or facts?" The red herring ques-tion can have the effect of silencing voices and eliminating points ofview that might happen to be right, or giving too much ground tothose who are wrong. Neither error has to be risked if one insiststhat debate must focus on the issue of true or falsity, or on whatis to be done. Either one can substantiate one's case to satisfymost people or not. How one classifies the type of argumentationused is, I think, quite beside the point.

Given our fuzzy understanding of facts and values as onto-logical categories, there will be facts and values (whatever both ofthese are) that everyone regards as relevant, some that everyoneregards as irrelevant and some about which people will disagree. Ifwe can get agreement on what is true, good or ought to be done,who but a metaphysician cares if we're agreeing on something factual

551

or valuable or both but can't agree on whether it's true, good orought to be done, then who but a metaphysician cares about that?In short, it seems to be a good idea for everyone but metaphysi-cians to forget about the fact-value distinction and get on with thepursuit of truth and the performance of good deeds.

VALUATiVE DISOURSE IN POLICY ANALYSIS

THE ASSUMPTIONS OF POLIGY ANALYSISGeoffrey Vickers, Massachusetts Insitute of Technology

ABSTRAGT

The preconditions of policy making are a concern in a humanmind about some situation, actual or hypothetical, which is per-ceived as important and the conceived possibility that human actioncould make it better. Perceptions of the situation and of its originsand of the scope if any for acting on it and the actions conceived asavailable vary immensely with the culture of the society involved;and they change with time. This theme is illustrated by a briefsummary of British political and cultural responses to poverty andto unemployment in the last hundred years.

The expression "policy analysis" seems to me an unhappy one.Given a policy, we can examine what we are doing to further it andconsider whether it is the best we can do for that purpose. We canalso re-examine the policy itself and consider whether it is the mostappropriate response to the concern which gave it birth. The firstof these is more commonly called operations research and tendsrightly to slide into the second. Equally, given a concern but asyet no policy, we can examine the situation from which the concernarises and consider what if anything we can do about it and atti-tude we should adopt towards it, not excluding acceptance if weconclude that there is nothing we can usefully and safely do. Thefirst of these activities is usually called systems analysis, althoughanalysis is by no means all that is required to understand a situa-tion. Operations research and systems analysis are obviously inter-woven too closely to be separated, especially when we remember thatthe mental process whereby we trace the probable course of a situa-tion under various hypothetical circumstances is (so far as we cantell) the same as that by which we seek to understand its actualdevelopment in the past.

All these names, however, and the processes which they de-note take for granted a concerned human mind; a situation definedby that concern; and an assumed possibility — it need be nomore — that the concerned mind can make the situation more accept-able to itself or others by some action or inaction which is within its

552