Abstract
For many scientific policy advisors, as for most critics of contemporary scientific advisory practice, value freedom or political neutrality is the guiding ideal. Max Weber is often presented as the champion of this position. On closer inspection, however, this championship of value freedom becomes puzzling. Weber’s claims on intellectual honesty, on studying what is worth knowing and on presenting inconvenient truths to policymakers urge investigation of the ideal of value neutrality. What type of value decisions must an expert advisor make, and how can he best address those issues?
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Tholen, B. (2018). The Ideal of Value Neutrality in Policy Research and Advice: Some Inconvenient Observations. In: Virtue and Responsibility in Policy Research and Advice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65253-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65253-5_1
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