Fact and Value in Decision-Making

in CHAPitR I it was coin no out chat every decision involves elements of two
kinds, which were called "factual" and "value" elements respectively. This distinction proves to be a very fundamental one for administration. It leads first of all to
an understanding of what is meant by a "correct" administrative decision. Secondly, ft clarifies the distinction, so often made in the literature of administration,
between policy questions and questions of administration. These important issues
will be the subject matter of the present chapter.
To ground an answer to these questions on first principles would require that
this volume on administration be prefaced by an even longer philosophical treatise. The necessary ideas are already accessible in the literature of philosophy.
Hence, the conclusions reached by a particular school of modem philosophy
logical positivismwill be accepted as a starting point, and their implications for
the theory of decisions examined The reader who is interested m examining the
reasoning upon which these doctrines are based will find references to the literature in the footnotes to this chapter.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN FACTUAL AND ETHICAL MEANING
Factual propositions art statements about the observable world and the way in
which it operates.' In principlt. factual propositions may b* tested to determine
whether they are true or falsewhether what they say about the world actually occurs, or whether it does not.
Decisions are something more than factual propositions. To be sure, they are
descriptive of a future state of affairs, and this description can be true or false in a
strictly empirical sense; but they possess, in addition, an imperative qualitythey
select one future state of affairs in preference to another and direct behavior toward
the chosen alternative. In short, they have an ethical as well as a factual content.
The question of whether decisions can be correct and incorrect resolves itself,
then, into the question of whether ethical terms like "ought," "good," and "preferable" have a purely empirical meaning. It is a fundamental premise of this study
^^^^: completely reducible to factual terms. No attempt will be
^W^^^^^^e^^Wrate conclusively the correctness of this view toward ethical
propositions; the justification has been set forth at length by logical positivists and
others.^

The argument, briefly, runs as follows. To determine whether a proposition is

correct, ft must be compared directly with experiencewith the factsor it must
lead by logical reasoning to other propositions that can be compared with epenence. But factual propositions cannot be derived from ethical ones by any
process of reasoning, nor can ethical propositions be compared directly with the
factssince they assert "oughts" rather than facts. Hence, there is no way in which
the correctness of ethical propositions can be empirically or rationally tested
From this viewpoint, if a sentence declares that some particular state of affairs
"ought to be," or that it is "preferable" or "desirable," then the sentence performs
an imperative function, and is neither true nor false, correct nor incorrect. Since
decisions involve valuation of this kind, they too cannot be objectively described as
correct or incorrect.
The search for the philosopher's stone and the squaring of the circle have not
been more popular pursuits among philosophers than the attempt to derive ethical
sentences, as consequences of purely factual ones. To mention a relatively modem
exampleBentham defined the term "good" as equivalent with "conducive to
happiness." defining "happiness" in psychological terms.'
He then considered whether or not particular states of affairs were conducive to
happiness, and hence good. Of course, no logical objection can be raised against
this procedure: it is here rejected because the word "good" thus defined by Bentham cannot perform the function required of the word "good" in ethicschat of
expressing moral preference for one alternative over another. It may be possible by
such a process to derive the conclusion that people will be happier under one set
of circumstances than under another, but this does not prove that they ought to be
happier The Aristotelian definitionthat something is good for man which makes
him correspond more closely with his essential nature as a rational animal*
suffers from the same limitation.
Thus, by appropriate definitions of the word "good" it may be possible to construct
sentences of the form: "Such a state of affairs is good." But from "good" defined in
this way it is impossible to deduce "Such a state of affairs ought to be' the task of
ethics to select imperativesought-sentences; and this task cannot be
accomplished if the term "good" is denned in such a way that it merely designates
existent*. In this study, therefore, words like "good" and "ought" will be reserved
for their ethical functions, and will not be predicated of any state of affairs in a

purely factual sense. It follows that decisions may be "good." but they cannot, in
an unqualified sense, be "correct." or "true."
The Evaluation of Decisions
We see that, in a strict sense, the administrator's decisions cannot be evaluated by
scientific means. Is there no scientific content, then, to adminiitratfve problems?
Are they purely questions of ethics? Quite the contrary: to assert that there is an
ethical element involved in every decision is not to assert that decisions involve
only ethical elements.
Consider the following passage from the Irfontry Fitld ' of the United
States Army.
Surpnse is an essential element of a successful anack. Iti effects should be
striven for in small as well as in large operations. Infantry effects surprise by
concealment of the time and place of the anack, screening of its dispositions,
rapidity of maneuver, deception, and the avoidance of stereotyped procedures.'
It is difficult to say to what extent these three sentences are meant as factual
propositions, and to what extent they are intended as imperatives, that is. at decisions. The first may be read purely as a statement about the conditions for a successful attack; the third may be interpreted as a listing of the conditions under
which a state of surprise is achieved. But binding together these factual sentencesproviding them with connective tissue, so to speakis a set of expressed
and implied imperatives, which may be paraphrased thus: "Anack successfully!"
"Employ surprise!" and "Conceal the time and place of anack, screen dispositions,
move rapidly, deceive the enemy, and avoid stereotyped procedures!"
In fact, the paragraph can be rephrased in another way. separating it into three
sentences, the first ethical, the others purely factual:

It follows that the decisions that a military commander makes to screen the
dispositions of his troops contain both factual and ethical elements, for he screens
the dispositions in order to effect "surprise," and this in order to attack successfully.
Hence, there is one sense in which the correctness of his decisions can be judged
it is a purely factual question whether the measures he takes in order to accomplish
his aim are appropriate measures. It is not a factual question whether the aim itself
is correct or not, eicept in so far as this aim is connected, by an "in order," to fur-

ther aims.
Decisions can always be evaluated in this relative senseit can be determined
whether they are correct, given the objective at which they are aimedbut a
change
in objectives implies a change in evaluation.

Strictly speaking, it is not

the decision
itself which is evaluated, but the purely factual
relationship that is asserted between
the decision and its aims* The commander's decision to take particular
measures
in order to attain surprise is not evaluated: what is evaluated is his factual judgment that the measures he takes will, in fact, attain surprise.
This argument may be presented in a slightly different way. Consider the two
sentences: "Achieve surprise!" and "The conditions of surpnse are concealment of
the time and place of anack. etc." while the first sentence contains an imperative,
or ethical, element, and hence is neither true nor false, the second sentence is
purely factual. If the notion of logical inference be eitended so as to apply to the
ethical as well as the factual element in sentences, then from these two sentences a
third may be deduced: "Conceal the time and place of anack, etc.!" Thus, with the
mediation of a factual premise (the second sentence), one imperative can be deduced from another"