公共管理评论

社会科学承担着两方面的功能。一方面,它要服务于特定实践领域中具体问题的解决;另一方面,它要有助于维护社会的道德秩序。在根本上,社会科学的合法性取决于它能否通过对具体社会问题的有效解决来维护和促进社会的道德秩序。20世纪中期,现代学术制度建立,目的是挑选出好的科学,以充分发挥科学的社会功能。这为社会科学带来了巨大的合法化压力。为证明自身合法性,社会科学转向了学术等级制,通过表明自己处于学术等级制顶端来证明自己是好的科学。由此,社会科学研究变成了学术等级制的自我繁殖,而与通过对具体社会问题的有效解决来维护和促进社会道德秩序的目的渐行渐远。这样一种自反性合法化反而使社会科学陷入了严重的合法性危机。

The social sciences serve two functions. On the one hand, the social sciences should solve specific problems in specific fields of practice. On the other hand, they should help maintain the moral order of society. Fundamentally, the legitimacy of the social sciences depends on whether they can maintain and promote the moral order of society by effectively solving specific social problems. In the mid-20th century, since the development of science had helped to achieve many government goals during World War Ⅱ, the American government took the lead in establishing a modern academic funding system so as to select good sciences that would maximize their social function. Because all scientific research is mainly based on the judgment of the natural sciences about good science,under this funding system there was enormous pressure to legitimatize the social sciences.In order to prove their legitimacy, the social sciences gradually turned to an academic hierarchy, showing that they can produce research results at the top of this hierarchy.Thus, social science research became a self-reproducing academic hierarchy, gradually drifting away from its function of maintaining and promoting a social moral order through effective solutions to specific social problems. From its origins during the progressive movement of the early 20th century, the legitimacy of the social sciences has fundamentally depended on whether and to what extent they can promote an egalitarian moral order in a scientific way. But all such efforts to prove the legitimacy of the social sciences by climbing the academic hierarchy have destroyed the moral order and shaken their legitimacy. Therefore, this paper uses reflexive legitimization to address the problem of legitimacy. The more social science research tries to justify its legitimacy by climbing the hierarchy, the more its legitimacy will be undermined.This article refers to such a development as the reflexive legitimation of social science. The more social science tries to justify itself by climbing the hierarchy, the more it undermines its legitimacy.