ABSTRACT This is a lightly edited transcript of a plenary talk given at the Beyond Positivism conference, Montreal, August 8–10 2017. The talk followed others by Christopher Winship and Frédéric Vandenberghe, which are mentioned in the text. The paper argues that critical social science needs an ontology of values, and that a coherent ontology must recognize that values are created by human beings in social settings, rather than being objectively true. Recognizing this, however, need not expose us to the moral nihilism of extreme relativism. Drawing on the work of Habermas and the capabilities approach, I argue that we can reason about what sorts of basic values we should be committed to, without invoking the concept of objective values. This provides us with material that we can build on to construct more complex constructive critical arguments.

中文翻译：

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现实主义，价值观和批评

摘要这是2017年8月8日至10日在蒙特利尔举行的超越积极主义会议上的一次全体会议演讲的轻描淡写的谈话。演讲中紧随其后的是克里斯托弗·温希尔和弗雷德里克·范登伯格，其他人在本文中都有提及。该论文认为，批判性社会科学需要价值的本体，并且一个连贯的本体必须认识到价值是人类在社会环境中创造的，而不是客观地真实的。然而，认识到这一点并不需要使我们陷入极端相对主义的道德虚无主义。利用哈贝马斯的工作和能力方法，我认为我们可以在不调用客观价值概念的情况下就应该坚持什么样的基本价值做出推理。这为我们提供了可用来构建更复杂的建设性批判性论证的材料。