A health economist on medical sociology: reflections by an unreconstructed reductionist.

Eleven papers in medical sociology, recommended as representative by the Medical Sociology Group of the British Sociology Association, are evaluated by a health economist using five criteria: appeal of intellectual content, insights into political philosophy, explanatory power, predictive power and opportunities for social improvements. The paper concludes that the medical sociology literature is quite weak when judged by these criteria, though stronger on some than others. Sociologists often seem to confuse issues that involve value judgements with ones that do not, and generally seem to display a disconcerting obsession with methodological issues of the most fundamental kind that has inhibited medical sociology from developing interesting analyses of many issues on which, in principle, it ought to have much to offer.