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Many social scientists have long accepted the idea that there is a logical gap between facts and values. Many would maintain that it is impossible for scientific methods to confirm or prove value judgments. One of the classic statements of this view can be found in the work of the German sociologist Max Weber.

In 1904 Weber wrote the following concerning ultimate standards of value:

The elevation of these ultimate standards, which are manifested in concrete value-judgments, to the level of explicitness is the utmost that the scientific treatment of value-judgments can do without entering into the realm of speculation. As to whether the person expressing these value-judgments should adhere to these ultimate standards is his personal affair; it involves will and conscience, not empirical knowledge.

An empirical science cannot tell anyone what he should do -- but rather what he can do -- and under certain circumstances -- what he wishes to do.... Only on the assumption of the belief in the validity of values is the attempt to espouse value-judgments meaningful. However, to judge the validity of such values is a matter of faith.... The empirically demonstrable fact that these ultimate ends undergo historical changes and are debatable does not affect this distinction between empirical science and value-judgments, contrary to what is often thought. [See the articles by Weber in The Methodology of the Social Sciences, edited by Edward Shills and Henry Finch, p. 54-55.]

He wrote again, in 1917:

We are not concerned with the question of the extent to which different types of evaluations may claim different degrees of normative dignity -- in other words, we are not interested in the extent to which ethical evaluations, for example, differ in character from the question whether blondes are to be preferred to brunettes or some similar judgment of taste. These are problems in axiology, not in the methodology of the empirical disciplines. The latter are concerned only with the fact that the validity of a practical imperative as a norm and the truth-value of an empirical proposition are absoluetely (sic) heterogeneous in character.

.... I am most emphatically opposed to the view that a realistic "science of ethics," i.e., the analysis of the influence which the ethical evaluations of a group of people have on their other conditions of life and of the influences which the latter, in their turn, exert on the former, can produce an "ethics" which will be able to say anything about what should happen. [See the articles by Weber in The Methodology of the Social Sciences, edited by Edward Shills and Henry Finch, p. 12-13.]

Those who accept this view are quick to point out that the social sciences can assist those who make value judgments and policy decisions in a variety of ways. For a concise discussion of what science can and cannot do within this framework, see chapter three of Political Theory: The Foundations of Twentieth-Century Political Thought by Arnold Brecht. Brecht proposes that science can identify the immediate and ulterior purposes of people, determine whether purposes conflict, determine the meaning of purposes in the minds of those who pursue them, determine whether purposes can be achieved using various means, determine the foreseeable consequences and risks involved, and more. On the limitations of "Scientific Method" he adds the following:

This method does not enable us to state, in absolute terms, whether the purpose pursued by us or by others is good or bad, right or wrong, just or unjust, nor which of several conflicting purposes is more valuable than the other. It only enables us to answer these questions in relative terms, with reference to some purpose that is actually being pursued, or which the scientist in some "working hypothesis" assumes ought to be pursued, or which reference to ideas that are actually held or might be held. In particular, Scientific Method cannot state in absolute terms which of several conflicting ultimate purposes is better than others except in relation to some presupposed goal or idea. In short, it does not enable the scientist to render an unconditional scientific value judgment, and especially not a moral one. It cannot set the goal. [Arnold Brecht, Political Theory, p. 124.]