A Critical Examination of the Moral Crisis in Western Political Science from Antiquity to Post-Behavioralism

Abstract

This article examines the moral and epistemological crisis of modern Western political science by tracing its historical development from classical Greek thought to post-behavioralist critique. Drawing on a historical–intellectual methodology complemented by critical comparative political theory, the study reconstructs the classical conception of politics as an ethical enterprise oriented toward justice (dikaiosynē), virtue, and human flourishing (eudaimonia). It then identifies successive epistemic ruptures, including Machiavellian realism, Enlightenment materialism, Social Darwinism, Marxist determinism, and twentieth-century behavioralism, that progressively detached political inquiry from moral philosophy. The findings demonstrate that the positivist commitment to value-neutrality did not eliminate normativity but instead institutionalized a concealed moral deficit, privileging stability, efficiency, and power over justice and the common good. By engaging post-behavioral critiques and comparative, non-Eurocentric epistemologies, the article argues that the crisis of Western political science is fundamentally ontological rather than merely methodological. It concludes that revitalizing the discipline requires reintegrating ethical reasoning, metaphysical commitments, and comparative moral traditions into political analysis and pedagogy.