Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the role and implications of using ‘thick folk concepts’ in social scientific theories. Such concepts have an evaluative and a descriptive component. Our suggestion is that despite their attempt to rid thick folk concepts of their evaluative aspects, social scientists are often not successful in doing so. By focusing on a representative case of attempting to remove the evaluative component of thick folk concepts via the strategy of explication in economics, we show that social scientists either have to make value judgements or are unable to individuate out the phenomenon under investigation. One consequence is that theories containing thick folk concepts commit the social scientist to making value judgements, something that they frequently want to avoid.