Will social scientists' never-ending disputes over words ever end?

Social science literatures are rife with disputes over their key words. I show that they tend to conflate two activities. One of them I call "word goes first!" It concerns word uses and how to appraise them. The other I call "distinction goes first!" It concerns distinctions and classifications and how to appraise them. For each activity, social science communities should get clear on what to do, what to circumvent, and what's at stake. I argue that both are practical reason activities. They should be partly driven by the common good, justice, and equality.

Outline of a sociology of decisionism.

I propose an agenda for empirical research on decision, choice, decision-makers, and decision-making qua social facts. Given society S, group G, or field F, I make a twofold sociological proposal. First, empirically investigate the conditions under which something-call it X-is taken to be a decision or choice, or the outcome of a decision-making process. What must X be like? What doesn't count (besides, presumably, myotatic reflexes and blushing)? Whom or what must X be done by? What can't be a decision-maker (besides, presumably, rocks and apples)? Second, empirically investigate how decision/choice concepts are used in everyday life, politics, business, education, law, technology, and science. What are they used for? To what extent do people understand and represent themselves and others as decision-makers? Where do decision-centric or "decisionist" understandings succeed? These aren't armchair, theoretical, philosophical questions, but empirical ones. Decision/choice concepts' apparent ubiquity in contemporary societies calls for a well-thought-out research program on their social life and uses.