ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the views concerning social value of mainstream theorists are inadmissible on philosophical grounds and inapplicable on pragmatic grounds. It suggests that a more warrantable social value theory must be used if headway is to be made in resolving major economic problems that are producing agonizing, divisive, and destructive consequences. The philosophical dilemma for traditional neoclassical economists has often appeared to be the simultaneous and contradictory claims to positivism and to problem solving relevance—the concern to eschew value judgments and yet to advise on economic policy which compels the use of value principles. A related and more important reason is the prevailing dominion of ethical relativism, which asserts that value principles and criteria are relative to individuals or cultures holding them. The utilitarian premise is firmly embedded in mainstream neoclassicism, but with Alfred Marshall, utility becomes a subjective estimate of desire.
