Eric, I agree with your recent message. And I admire  
your dealing with my attempt at rhetoric.  
  
To get directly to your original point, I agree that  
one runs the "risk of introducing/disguising gendered  
or other contested values" when one makes decisions to  
individuate and aggregate. On the other hand, the  
complexity of economic interaction requires  
"individuation," in the form of constructing roles,  
functions, and personifications. It also requires  
aggregation of a sort that assumes common yet variable  
characteristics among large numbers of individuals  
acting in the same role.  
  
Such procedures are risky but there is no other way  
for economists to go about their business.  
  
The ultimate question for you, I presume, is what that  
business is. For me it is the evaluation of arguments  
favoring or opposing a policy to intervene in a market  
economy in ways other than those that are necessary to  
maintain it. Maintenance requires the internal setting  
and enforcement of private property rights and  
protection against attack from outside. I argue that  
one can evaluate most arguments by using the logic  
that has been developed in the literary form of  
neoclassical economics, including the law of demand.  
  
There is a risk, to be sure. But I think that the risk  
can be minimized by focusing on the logical evaluation  
of interventionist arguments. The risk would be much  
greater if one's aim was to justify a proposal for a  
better world.  
  
HESers, I have found, are not too interested in  
defining economics. So you are probably correct in  
your assessment of the discussion of feminist  
economics, although I have not followed it closely  
enough to cite cases. But your initial comment was  
about "economists (as a group)."  
  
Pat Gunning