as being a true or false judgment, that is, a proposition predicating the reality of a certain state of affairs located in our natural context.12 This meant that the scientific perspective regarding norms had to be shifted from an internal to an external view. According to Hägerström’s moral theory, moral propositions and values as such can, due to lack of truth value,13 neither be discovered and determined by science nor used in scientific argumentation in order to prove and strengthen a proposition’s truth value, nor to support claims regarding a concept’s reality. Science is aimed at revealing knowledge about reality, not at producing values or value-judgments about facts.These conclusions are furthermore supported by Hägerström’s view regarding his own specific area of expertise, moral philosophy, that he explicitly expressed in the concluding remarks of his inaugural lecture of 18 March 1911. In this lecture, he argued that moral science could, if it was to be regarded as a science at all:“… not be a teaching in morals, but only a teaching about morality.”14 Actual morality is thus the object of moral science; moral science should thus not express a normative morality or moral systema priori.15 As a consequence of Hägerström’s theoretical dismissal of objective values, scientific argumentation must therefore refrain from mixing facts with ideological or any other form of normative argument. For if this separation of ought frombeing failed to be mainp a r t i v, c h a p t e r 1 244 a truth value so long as they were judgments about positive values in an historical context, that is, judgments about values that could be verified by normal empirical means. I therefore choose to use Hedenius’ distinction as a model and to use the terminology internal and external view instead of the original äkta (genuine) and oäkta (nongenuine) legal sentences. 12 See Hägerström, “Hägerström.”; “The Philosophy of Axel Hägerström.” 13 Hägerström, “Moraliska föreställningar,” p. 45; “Moral Propositions,” p. 92. 14 Hägerström, “Moraliska föreställningar,” p. 45; “Moral Propositions,” p. 96. Swedish:“moralvetenskapen icke kan vara en lära i moral, utan blott en lära om moralen.” 15 This theoretical standpoint about moral philosophy as a science can be compared with Hägerström’s positivistic theory of jurisprudence, PartsV-VI below. In both the 1. 3 value s and sci ent i f ic argumentat ion
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