ABSTRACT
The title of this paper is intended to be multiply ambiguous. It raises, first, the question of why we care about the conclusions of economics, why we bother to do economics at all. Second, and given that we do do economics, it is possible that whatever ends economists themselves intend to promote by doing economics might differ from more general goals identified in answering the first question. And third, we may inquire whether economic theories may contain, overtly or covertly, particular economic goals-normative presuppositions about the way economics ought to be practiced. In this paper, we shall offer some admittedly sketchy answers to these interrelated questions. Since we shall suggest that many of the ends of economics are ends that we have little good reason to pursue, we conclude with the question of whether we should advocate, in yet one further sense, an end of economics.
