Value Judgments and Value Neutrality in Economics. A Perspective from Today

The paper compares the various theses that have been offered about valueneutrality in economics and examines the main available arguments in turn. The extreme non-neutrality thesis (universal value-impregnation) and the extreme neutrality thesis (there is no normative economics) are rebutted, and the analysis is then oriented towards settling the dispute between two intermediary variants. In conclusion, the paper argues for a weak non-neutrality thesis, allowing for a separation between positive and normative economics. The conclusions depend on clarifying the logical notion of an evaluation, the claim that seemingly evaluative concepts like Pareto-optimality are factual, Hume's no-ought-from-is principle, and Weber's classic argument that the social scientist should be neutral as between values and ends.