Value judgments and value neutrality in economics

Philippe Mongin

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The paper analyzes economic evaluations by distinguishing evaluative statements from value judgments proper. Building on this basis, it compares four solutions to the value-neutrality problem in economics. After rebutting the strong theses about neutrality (normative economics is illegitimate) and non-neutrality (the social sciences are value-impregnated), the paper settles the case between the weak neutrality thesis (common in welfare economics) and a novel, weak non-neutrality thesis that extends the realm of normative economics more widely than the other weak thesis does.

Keywords: Value Judgments; Value Neutrality; Positive-Normative Distinction; Welfare Economics; Robbins; Weber (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 B20 D60 B41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/37751/ original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Value Judgments and Value Neutrality in Economics (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:37751

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany
Address: Schackstr. 4, D-80539 Munich, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Ekkehart Schlicht ().