Pat Gunning wrote:  
>In reply to John Medaille about economics   
>necessarily being value laden, my guess is that   
>he would regard physics as value laden also.  
  
I have already responded to the question about physics in a previous post.  
  
>  The question is: If economics is all value   
> laden, then how can we economists ever reach an   
> agreement about anything unless we share the same values?  
  
Excellent question. It seems to me that   
economists from different schools don't agree on   
very much, and the problem is that they assign a   
different function to economics and hence start   
with different values. But since they don't   
always recognize their starting positions as   
value-laden, they talk past each other. Values   
can be discussed and compared, if one recognizes   
that as the question. Otherwise, the conversation   
gets lost because the participants don't realize the real subject.  
  
>In fact, agreements have been reached by very   
>good economists who have very different values.  
>  
>No Nobel Prize winner of physics of whom I am   
>aware believes that all physics is value laden.   
>And no Nobel Prize winner of economics of whom I   
>am aware believes that economics is all value laden.  
  
I am not sure that Amartya Sen would agree with   
you. Nor would all physicists, for reasons I laid   
out in my previous post.The arguments in physics   
between "realists" and idealists are legendary.   
Einstein could never reconcile himself to quantum   
mechanics because they violated his sense of   
order in the universe. "God does not play dice,"   
he responded to Niels Bohr. Whatever side one   
takes in that debate, it is not "value-free."  
  
>Now if these bright people don't believe this, I   
>say (appealing to authority, if I must) that I   
>need pay no attention to those like John who   
>have these strange beliefs about values.  
  
But you assert that your own view is value free.   
This is simply impossible. The values we bring to   
economics will depend on whatever function we   
assign to economics (or vice-versa). If we view   
the role of economics as the mere accumulation of   
goods, we will have one set of values. If we view   
it as the means to the end of the proper and just   
material provisioning of society, we bring   
another set of values. Recently, someone said to   
me that the "The goal of economics is to evaluate   
arguments for and against market intervention."   
That may or may not be true, but it is certainly   
not value-free. Milton Friedman agrees with you,   
yet he claims that the only "social   
responsibility" of the firm is to enhance   
shareholder value. A value-free statement? I don't think so.  
  
Historically--and from the time of   
Aristotle--economics has been a colony of ethics,   
and no philosopher or theologian worth his salt   
would refrain from writing on economics. Only in   
the 19th century does the idea of an ethics free   
economics become a dream. As Jevons put it, the   
lack of a �perfect system of statistics � is the   
only � obstacle in the way of making economics an   
exact science�; once the statistics have been   
gathered, the generalization of laws from them   
�will render economics a science as exact as many   
of the physical sciences.�[1]  We have had more   
than a century of statistics since Jevons, yet   
economics has come no closer to physics--either   
real physics or what economists imagine physics   
to be--then we were in Jevons' day.  
  
  
  
>Of course, I need not appeal to authority. The   
>epistemological basis for economics has been   
>described quite well by Mises in his ULTIMATE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE.  
  
That sounds like an appeal to the authority of   
Mises. But epistemology is not a field in which   
Mises, as an economist, had an expertise; if he   
is advancing his claims as a philosopher, that is   
one thing, but it is a field about which   
economists must defer to others. Samuel Bostaph   
traces the differences in economic schools to   
different epistemologies, which is certainly part   
of the question (although not, I think, the whole   
of it). But to the degree that  it is true,   
economics roots itself in something outside   
itself. Empiricists will have one view,   
platonists another, critical realists a third,   
metaphysical realists a fourth, and so on. A book   
by Mises would hardly be dispositive of the question.  
  
  
[1] James E. Alvey, "A Short History of Economics   
as a Moral Science," Journal of Markets and   
Morality 2, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): 62.  
  
  
John Medaille