Chuck Grimes wrote:
> Positive scientific knowledge
> that enables us to predict the consequences of a possible course of
> action is clearly a prerequisite for the normative judgment whether
> that course of action is desirable.
This (along with the rest of what you say) involves implicit (and, I would say, mistaken) ontological premises. What if "being" is such that values are involved in human action in a way that makes it possible for such action to be based on mistaken beliefs about values? Understanding human action then requires that you understand this feature of it. This is the premise implicitly underpinning Goethe's Faust; it explains why Faust doesn't say "stay" to any of the "moments".
"The pseudo-analogy with the physical sciences leads directly counter to the habit of mind which is most important for an economist proper to acquire.
"I also want to emphasise strongly the point about economics being a moral science. I mentioned before that it deals with introspection and with values. I might have added that it deals with motives, expectations, psychological uncertainties. One has to be constantly on guard against treating the material as constant and homogeneous. It is as though the fall of the apple to the ground depended on the apple's motives, on whether it is worth while falling to the ground, and whether the ground wanted the apple to fall, and on mistaken calculations on the part of the apple as to how far it was from the centre of the earth." (Keynes, Collected Writings, vol. XIV, p. 300)
Ted