The value judgment controversy (German: Werturteilsstreit) is a Methodenstreit , a quarrel in German sociology and economics, around the question whether the social sciences are a normative obligatory statement in politics and its measures applied in political actions, and whether their measures can be justified scientifically. [1]
The internecine quarrel took place in the years before World War I, between the members of the Verein für Socialpolitik ; the primary antagonists were Max Weber, Werner Sombart, and Gustav Schmoller.
The Zweite Werturteilsstreit—better known as Positivismusstreit — was the debate between the supporters of Kritische Theorie and those of Kritischer Rationalismus during the 1960s .