1) first of all, social science could ignore the possibility of improving people's lives by eliminating the obstacle of qualia. to do this, social science would have to revert to pure behaviorism and treat the mind/brain as a "black box". in this school of thought, success is no longer measured by improving people's lives, but by achieving goals set forth in the hypothesis of an experiment, tested through the behavior of the subjects. we already have a form of social science that pretty much follows this process: economics! (well, for almost all intents and purposes, although it does make a few inferences about people's psychological states so as to not be absolutely and completely behaviorist, although it still is essentially behaviorist as far as its approach to evaluating people's decisions.) so unless one would want anthropology, sociology, and psychology to be reduced to the level of economics, i don't see how this approach is a viable option.
2) consider the notion of progress in science: is the concept of progress essential to the concept of science? while progress can always be considered somewhat subjective, i think the general notion of progress in science is building on a body of knowledge so that, with the passage of time, we have a better understanding of how our environment works (in hard science, the environment being matter/energy). however, since social science is epistemically subjective according to my argument, then you can't build on an objective body of knowledge. however, you can attempt to improve people's epistemically subjective qualia, which equates to improving people's lives so to speak. if you don't try to attempt to improve people's epistemically subjective qualia, then you are no longer doing science -- even science in the form of social science. at this point, one is simply interacting with people under the methodology of the experiment, which is inherently a rule system. however, without a social scientific intentionality, the experiment is no longer a form of social science, and social scientifically isn't any different from casually interacting with people.
3) why does social science have to improve people's lives in an *experiment* to be considered successful? well, one could claim that while certain experiments might not be "successful" according to the definitions i have given, that over time a series of "unsuccessful" experiments might lead to knowledge that is considered "successful". so, you could raise the standard of "success" from experiment to theory to paradigm, with the standard encompassing a larger scope in both space and time as one jumps up from one level to the next. the problem with this idea is the following: at what point does one determine the appropriate level for the standard of "success" to be? the problem is that paradigms, even when paradigm shifts occur, are rarely ever completely replaced. so, at some level, a paradigm established now has an infinite life span, which coincides with the infinite life span of possible existence for humans (although the human species will likely not continue forever, but that is a debate for another time). by having the domains of paradigms and human life/existence completely overlap, the end result of social science becomes the end point of human life/existence, which poses two major problems. first of all, since humans will no longer be around, the results of the paradigm will have no relevance to the human species. secondly, even coming from the perspective of an objective observer, one cannot know whether the end result is due to the paradigm or due to overall life circumstances; in this sense, social science will have become equivalent to the humanities and art and vice-versa. one could argue that the standard of success could operate at the level of theory, but in order to be as scientific as possible, one should keep the standard of success at the level of the experiment, because any level higher is indicative of a less-social scientific intentionality.
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