Abstract
It is conventional in economics to distinguish between the normative and the positive. The normative has to do with goodness and badness, and with what ought and ought not to be done;1 and the positive has to do with objective description and/or explanation, with what is and with what is necessary given some normative end. The normative has to do with desirability; the positive has to do with truth (in the sense of either descriptive accuracy or serviceability of a means to a given end).2
Originally published in Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 10 (Spring 1988), pp. 347–54.
The author is indebted to James T. Bonnen, Glenn L. Johnson, and James D. Shaffer for comments on an earlier draft of this essay.
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References
Lewis, C. I. (1955) The Ground and Nature of the Right (New York: Columbia University Press).
Samuels, Warren J. (1966) ‘The Nature and Scope of Economic Policy’, in The Classical Theory of Economic Policy (Cleveland: World).
Samuels, Warren J. (1974) Pareto on Policy (New York: Elsevier).
Samuels, Warren J. (1977) ‘Ideology in Economics’, in Sidney Weintraub (ed.), Modern Economic Thought (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 467–84.
Samuels, Warren J. (1979) ‘Normative Premises in Regulatory Theory’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 100–14.
Samuels, Warren J. and Mercuro, Nicholas (1979) ‘The Role and Resolution of the Compensation Principle in Society: Part One – The Role’, in Richard O. Zerbe, Jr (ed.), Research in Law and Economics, vol. 1 (Greenwich: JAI Press).
Ward, Ben (1972) What’s Wrong with Economics? (New York: Basic Books).
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© 1992 Warren J. Samuels
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Samuels, W.J. (1992). An Essay on the Nature and Significance of the Normative Nature of Economics. In: Essays on the Methodology and Discourse of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12371-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12371-1_6
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