Abstract
It is normally conceded that the study of politics today aspires to value neutrality. Arnold Brecht has outlined a scenario for political scientists, taken largely from Max Weber, which excludes values from research and which has been widely accepted as the proper statement on research philosophy. Fundamental to this value-neutral view of political inquiry is the thought that politics can be conceptualized without an endorsement as neutral between claims for the good or just polity. But there are dissents both to the aspiration and the thought. A revival of naturalism in moral philosophy today has challenged the separation between ought and is which makes possible the value-neutral thesis, and a strong tradition in political theory has always maintained that any adequate conceptualization of politics requires some reference to the good or just polity.
