On the Merits of Intellectual Masturbation: Critical Theory and Empiricism

In most social sciences, including information systems, empirical research is seen as the gold standard to be aspired to. This paper draws on critical theory in information systems and considers the status of empirical research in this stream of research. Critical research can be defined by the desire to emancipate. Such emancipation must be based on ethical premises. The desire to change the world cannot be deduced from observation. The ethical underpinnings of critical research create problems for empirical investigations. While one can collect data on people’s moral preferences and their ethical justifications, such data cannot provide ethical legitimacy of certain courses of action. Empirical research, while valuable for a variety of reasons, can therefore not answer some of the central questions of critical research, including what the content of emancipation is or how it should be achieved. Based on this argument, the paper raises the question of relative weighting of empirical and conceptual work and suggests treating conceptual research as at least as valuable as empirical work.