In 'The Nature and Classes of Prescriptive Judgements', Amartya Sen distinguished between purely prescriptive and evaluative judgments. This was foolish since a prescription necessarily involves evaluating the state being recommended as superior to the one which obtains or would obtain if the prescription were not followed. What of evaluative judgments? Well, since Kant, 'judgment' in Ethics means the same thing as 'proposition' in Logic or 'theorem' in Math. Apparently, this has to do with some quirk of the German language. Still, when thinking about a proposition or theorem or a judicial decision, arguments for and against the thing are 'evaluated'. The one chosen is the one that better promotes the intended outcome. But, 'prescriptions' do exactly that. In other words, there is no actual distinction between prescription and evaluation. One may say the former is part of the latter or that the latter was the basis of the former but one could equally say cats are dogs which say miaow or dogs are cats which say woof woof.
Sen makes a different error when differentiating between a compulsive and a non-compulsive judgments. Sen thinks the former implies a strong imperative to choose one option over another while the latter suggests a preference without a strict imperative. He does not understand that the former just means 'judgment' while the latter means 'not a judgment, this is just a personal preference or passing whim'. A legal judgment or logical proposition or mathematical theorem compels assent from those satisfied by the proof offered. Saying 'I like Pizza but, for some strange reason, never on a Tuesday' is not a judgment. It is not a prescription. It is not an evaluation. It is merely a statement of no ethical import or imperative force. We may say it is 'phatic'- i.e. its primary purpose is to be sociable, not informative.
Sen then goes on to distinguish between 'basic judgments'- which remain unchanged regardless of factual circumstances and non-basic judgments which may change with new information. The cretin does not get that the former are knows as 'principles' or 'axioms' whereas the latter are called judgments, propositions, theorems etc. Sen says basic value judgments cannot be disputed through factual means while non-basic judgments can be examined and potentially revised based on new evidence. He appears oblivious to the Quid Juris/Quid Factis distinction. The facts of the case determine which principles or value judgements are applicable. However, those same principles or value judgments may determine what facts are 'eligible' or admissible.
Sen thinks utilitarianism evolved away from compulsive to a non-compulsive judgment. This was not the case. It simply abandoned a restrictive view of what was useful and what was vanity. Bentham coined a number of words- like 'quisquilious, to mean 'rubbishy'- for things he thought were a waste of time and money which nobody should indulge in. Once you have a notion of 'transferable utility'- i.e. money- we become charitable to those who produce 'quisquilious' novels about boy wizards because we realize that their author earns billions of dollars in foreign exchange for our country.
Sen, in his 1967 paper wasn't talking of Economics per se and, not being a Philosopher- or a Western European by birth or upbringing- his imbecility may be forgivable. We can't say the same for Antoinette Baujard who recently published a paper titled 'Value Judgments and Economic Expertise'.
Within economics, and particularly within economic expertise, there are three different types of judgments.
No. There is only type of judgement we require from a professional expert- viz. such and such is the best path for us given where we want to go.
First, descriptive judgments which correspond to statements of fact, or “is” propositions. “Sirah is a vine, so is Chardonnay,” for instance, is a descriptive judgment.
No. It is a positive statement which may or may not be true.
Second, evaluative judgments which correspond to statements of value. The “is” here is thus qualified. “Sirah makes good wine”
No. That is still a positive statement. If Syrah wine sells at a high price, it is true.
or “Sirah makes red wine” are instances of evaluative judgments.
No. If Syrah wine is described in the trade as 'red wine', it is true.
Third, prescriptive judgments which correspond to statements of either recommendation or obligation. For instance, “Paul should drink Sirah, not Chardonnay” is a prescriptive judgment.
It is a positive statement if the preceding utterance was 'Paul wants to impress the boss who likes Syrah but has a prejudice against Chardonnay.'
This trichotomy seems clear, and the separation between the three different classes of judgments is clear cut.
It is nonsense. Analytical philosophy can have no purchase in the pragmatics of utterances by economic experts.
Let us therefore consider the three types of judgment in turn, with the aim of shaking this first impression, and highlighting rather their interdependency.
Nonsense isn't 'interdependent'. It is merely nonsense.
(1) Let us begin by casting doubt on the assertion that a description is a mere statement of fact.
Some descriptions are factual. The Police may describe me in terms of height, weight, complexion etc. My wife describes me as a big fat pig. Both descriptions make it easier for a stranger to pick me out of a crowd.
Consider the following three statements: i) Paul is choosing Sirah whereas he could also have some Chardonnay.
Paul has 'revealed preference' for Syrah. That's a data point of high reliability.
ii) Paul says he likes Sirah better than Chardonnay.
A data point of lower reliability.
iii) Paul is choosing Sirah, and notices that Chardonnay is less expensive.
Interviewing him just at this moment yields qualitatively better data.
As these three descriptions of a possibly similar situation illustrate, each descriptive assertion requires a selection among all possible descriptions of reality, rather than mere observation (Sen 1980).
This is nonsense. Observation gives rise to description. The expert observer hones in on what is qualitatively more informative. Here, observing the guy who reaches for Syrah- presumably because this is his habit or because Syrah has a big ad campaign- and then notices the lower price of Chardonnay. His body language and the contents of his grocery cart add information about what is going on in his mind. Indeed, the expert may learn more from watching this guy than from a focus group.
However, we cannot say that each of these selections a priori involves an appeal to values –
Nothing wrong with an economic expert appealing to economic values- e.g. economizing on the use of scarce discovery, doing 'discovery' for regret minimizing reasons, etc.
as the ideology view would maintain (see below, section 4). At most we may speak of specific interpretations, where the selection depends on the aim of the description. Such interpretations may lead us to pursue certain specific paths of judgment, but this influence is not properly or strictly based on the descriptive judgments themselves.
There are no 'descriptive judgments'. There are mere observations of a positive type.
Rather, the evaluation presupposes the selection of a specific description.
E.g. tentatively placing a valuation on a house which is for sale on the basis of the average price for a house of that description on that particular street.
(2) Let us now consider the properties of evaluative judgments.
In economics, an evaluation is expressible in terms of money or 'opportunity cost' on a physicalist configuration space.
An evaluative notion of quality (such as “right,” “good,” “balanced”) supposes certain axiological abstract judgments.
Not if they are commonly used in the relevant market or trade. In that case, they are merely terms denoting a Schelling focal solution to a coordination game.
For instance, the definition of the “good,” “right,” or “just” relies on a specific ethical theory;
Not for positive economics.
but evaluative judgments are not all of an ethical nature, nor are they only of an ethical nature.
An economic expert is required to evaluate things in a purely positive manner.
Following Williams (1985), we may distinguish between “thin” and “thick” predicates.
But we don't because it is a waste of fucking time.
Thin predicates are strictly evaluative, such as “It is not good (right) to drink wine”
i.e. Wine is an illegal or repugnancy market. But this is a positive statement which may be true or false.
or “Sirah is a good wine.” Thick predicates are both descriptive and evaluative, such as: “Sirah wines have a balance of integrated, firm tannins and bright acidity with a soft, spicy and lingering finish.”
This is only evaluative because of the elision of - 'In the Wine trade, it is generally held'
Thick predicates include descriptions that go beyond the simple function of providing evaluations;
Not in Economics. Additional predicates add information which narrow down the valuation. This is a good Syrah but the tannins are too high, that's why it trades at a ten percent discount.
thin predicates do not. Applications of thin predicates do not make sense without also providing either a description or citing an experience.
Expert economists have experience. That is what makes them experts.
Expertise does indeed suppose the application of an abstract statement to a particular case – this is the fourth condition for defining expertise 7 (see above). Hence, experts will use thick predicates in their statements. How does this argument regarding predicates apply to judgments? I here present the notion of “basicness” as introduced by Sen (1967), and then discuss whether evaluations are basic or non-basic. Sen (1967: 50) defines a value judgment as “basic” to a person if no conceivable revision of factual assumptions can make him revise the judgment.
This is nonsense. It is a principle of the Economics of Oenology that wine is made from grapes. This corresponds to the 'basic judgment' that Pepsi Cola is not Wine. If you are valuing the wine in a cask and somebody switches a glass of Pepsi for your Syrah and you say 'this vintage has a complex bouquet and a smooth texture', you are not a fucking expert. That's a fact, not an assumption.
If such revisions can take place, the judgment is “non-basic” in his value system.
i.e. he has no fucking expertise
Judgments are considered basic until the converse is proved.
No. This shit is considered stupid by everybody.
If evaluations were to be considered basic, it would follow that no expertise was needed in order to move from that evaluation to advocating a specific course of action, since no statements of fact or specific attention to the actual situation would be involved in their formulation.
But principles, not evaluations are 'basic'. They are not informative. They lack any normative tie to action. The principle of Oenology that wine is made from grapes is not an 'evaluation'. True, a guy who claims to be able to value wine who thinks Pepsi is made from grapes is not an expert at all. But that is simply a fact.
It therefore follows that evaluations are non-basic in such case, since, if they were, we could imagine that a computer programmed with an exhaustive list of all the facts and theoretical knowledge (or an amicus curiae, as we said previously) would also be able to answer any such question; but this seems implausible.
Antoinette is assuming that an exhaustive list of 'principles' would uniquely identify and return a value for any particular object or course of action. This is the notion that there is some way to 'carve up reality along its joints'. But we don't know that way. Only an omniscient God might do so. But then there may be more principles than there are atoms in the universe.
If they are non-basic, then the request for an expert
as opposed to an omniscient God
does make sense, in that she would have to base her conclusions on a prudent judgment.
As do we all. I may think I am a cat and have nine lives and thus can afford to jump off a cliff. But this would not be a prudent. A Judge might well decide I am insane and ought to be confined in a padded cell.
Apart from cases involving strictly abstract predicates,
There are none such save in the sense that they are engaged in a homosexual relationship with leniently concrete predicates, who, however, are Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.
evaluation thus requires that we make descriptive judgments of some kind.
No. Evaluation does not require judgment. It can be outsourced or be purely mimetic. However, whether an evaluation is correct or not can only be judged on the basis of further information.
(3) The class of prescriptive judgments is a priori the most important one for describing the judgments of experts,
Judgments don't need to be described. Guilty is just 'guilty'. 'Buy' is just 'buy'.
as these are the ones the client is expecting him to formulate.
We expect experts to say 'go ahead and do x' or 'don't do x. Wait and see.'
Let us consider their properties: namely, their imperative status,
We don't hire experts on economics to lecture us on morality. We expect them to be informative and, hopefully, to say something useful.
their descriptive content, and their evaluative content.
Information is good. Evaluation- putting numbers to things- is fine. But a genuine expert who says 'do this!' or 'don't do that!' may be preferable. After all, non-deterministic decision processes can dominate anything algorithmic or which can, currently, have a mathematical or logical representation.
(3a) Their imperative status is standardly what distinguishes prescriptive judgments from other descriptive and evaluative judgments: they contain some authoritative call for action, or at least some element which orientates action in a certain way.
Any statement may be taken to have an imperative and an alethic component. Thus when my mother said 'Que sera sera' to me, the imperative element was 'don't be such a fucking sissy.' The alethic component was 'whatever will be will be'. This is false if the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness is true.
But the link from prescription to action is not absolutely direct and unquestionable, as we shall now see. Consider the following examples of such judgments: iv) “As Paul prefers Sirah to Chardonnay, he should drink the former rather the latter” v) “Paul ought to drink Sirah”; vi) “Paul, do not drink Chardonnay!” vii) “Do not drink!” viii) “No drinking”
They can mean anything at all to anyone at all.
These examples belong to different categories of prescriptive judgment.
Whose categories? Nobody has ever bothered to construct such categories for their own use. We may as well say they belong to different imaginary homosexual elephants which moonlight as compact Hausdorff spaces.
By specifying the context and conditions under which the prescription holds, assertion iv corresponds to some conditional advocacy in favour of certain actions. Such prescriptions correspond to recommendations; they cannot be called imperative – or, at most, we can refer to them as hypothetical and non-compulsive imperatives, implying that the person formulating the prescription would not consider the imperative to have been disobeyed if Paul acted contrary to it.
An imperative statement is not necessarily a command. Also, it may have no alethic or informative content. It may be phatic, or nonsensical.
Conversely, assertion vi is an uncontroversial statement of obligation, incorporating an imperative judgment.
It may be. It may not be. 'Paul don't drink Chardonnay' may be informative. Suppose a beautiful woman comes up to you at a party and says that to you, and suppose your name is not Paul, it is Sally, and you are holding a champagne flute in your hand, you will twig that there is something wrong. Perhaps the woman is in danger. Perhaps you are in danger and she is trying to tip you off. Maybe the thing is some sort of Lesbian code.
It may accurately be called imperative,
if that is what it is. Paul's Mum is reminding him he is only six months old and really oughtn't to be drinking anything stronger than gripe water.
in that the person formulating such a prescription does hope it will be respected.
It is imperative even if it represents 'reverse psychology'.
Assertion v corresponds to an ought statement.
It may do. It may not. Consider the question 'what should Paul do, in order to get drunk on Chardonnay? Drink it or bathe in it?' Here, the answer is alethic. It conveys the information that wine is only intoxicating when ingested.
It is underspecified, and may belong to one or the other class, depending on the context.
All assertions are underspecified in the sense that they have no unique interpretation.
Assertions vii and viii correspond to a universal imperative,
only by arbitrary stipulation
whether explicitly addressed to one person as in vii, or focused on an implied situation as in viii.
Nonsense! It is obvious that you can shake your finger at the teenagers in the room and say 'don't drink!' while all the adults get sloshed. Admittedly, things may be different in France.
I therefore defend the claim that there are two distinct kinds of prescriptive judgments: obligations, and recommendations; the former have the status of imperatives, and the latter of hypothetical imperatives.
Rubbish! I pay fire insurance premiums all my life. My house does not burn down. Indeed, the great mass of insured houses don't burn down. The obligation to pay out on a particular policy is hypothetical. What of 'recommendations'? They are propositions which may or may not refer to feasible outcomes or courses of action. 'Buy Bitcoin' is feasible. 'Go fuck yourself' is not. The first is 'positive' and translates as 'Bitcoin will rise in value'. The second is imperative or phatic.
As this claim is not standard in the analytic philosophy literature, I shall now defend it against the counter view that all prescriptive judgments are imperative.
I think that stupidity arises from Kant's notion that a truly autonomous person would be constantly legislating for himself. This was Teutonic nonsense. Autonomy means having a set of Hohfeldian immunities which are defeasible to one degree or another.
A first argument in favor of the distinction that I defend may be based on differentiating between the roles we have identified in the description of the chronology of the decision-making process. Let us consider the competing view which holds that all prescriptions are imperative by nature. We may note, first, that experts are not entitled to formulate imperative judgments; if experts were to formulate prescriptions with imperative status – i.e., to be followed whatever happens – the client would be logically committed to follow his recommendations.
That is a command which is also known as 'positive law'. A Judge or a Legislative Assembly or a duly empowered Executive may indeed issue such commands. This may be on the basis of expert advise. But it may also be in contradiction to such advise.
However, since the clients are the entitled deciders, experts have no legitimacy to take decisions, nor to determine the decisions that the client makes.
A professional expert may have a statutory duty to override the decision of the client. This is a justiciable matter.
The distinction of roles between expert and client makes such a scenario unlikely to happen; but to guard against such a confusion of roles, which could arise if we take the imperative nature of prescriptions seriously, experts should content themselves with issuing evaluative judgments.
Why? I'd prefer an accountant who says, 'Dude, you invest in this money pit and you'll be bankrupt. In fact, before that swindler takes your money, I'll fucking run off with it myself!' This is a false statement. He'd never swindle a client. But it has great imperative force.
The formulation of prescriptive judgments, strictly speaking, should proceed from the client, who is the proper decision maker.
Doctors give prescriptions. Speaking generally, it is up to the patient to get if filled and to take the medicine.
This exclusion of prescriptive vocabulary from expert usage corresponds to an ideal use of the language of morals. However, describing an ideal case is not always the best way to understand how concepts are applied. We do indeed observe that prescriptive language is used by experts, and even that they are expected to use such language. For instance, the French Council for Economic Analysis (Conseil d’analyse économique, or CAE) is explicitly asked to formulate one or two pages of recommendations for certain policies at the end of each of their studies. CAE specifies meanwhile that “the opinions displayed in CAE surveys belong only to their authors and do not commit either the Council, nor the delegated president, nor, of course, the Prime Minister" (see CAE website).
Because it is an Advisory, not an Executive, Body.
It is assumed that the expected use of prescriptive vocabulary does not and should not imply any imperative meaning.
It may do. It may not. Your priest says it would be wrong for you to have an abortion. Your doctor may say the opposite. One might say there is a normative aspect to what is considered good spiritual and good physical health. One may also say that 'experts' only exist because they add imperative force to things everybody is already telling us- e.g. stop eating and drinking so much. Would it kill you to take some fucking exercise? Not doing so will.
The client is the one who decides and who is responsible for formulating the imperative statement.
You can hire a mouthpiece. I suppose what this silly lady means is that the person making the choice makes the choice or delegates the choice or doesn't make the choice but lets it happen by default or neither makes a choice nor permits nor forbids or has any thing to do with a choice, or both is and isn't a client while simultaneously not being or being a homosexual elephant slut shamed by imaginary dwarves. This is because responsibility for formulating something which does not exist may be, salva veritate, attributed to the actuaries whose dreams of spaghetti are actually those same imaginary dwarves except they only slut shame polyandrous pachyderms.
Conversely, the expert formulates an opinion which does not need to be followed, and which is referred to as a recommendation.
There are shitheads, like Amartya Sen, whom you hire because you know they will make a worthless and time wasting recommendation. This is because that is what suits you. The pretence that experts exist is a smoke-screen.
Another way to present this argument is as follows. If prescriptions presuppose an obligation,
then, salva veritate, those obligation are imaginary dwarves whose farts are what presuppose those very prescriptions.
there ought to be some authority to this obligation which is able to lead through to an actual decision.
why stop there? Why not say the authority that ought to be that by which it ought to be must lead the pious life of an imaginary dwarf whose fart is the actual decision of the decisional actuality of its own prescriptive evaluation?
Such statements may suppose
or propose or decompose
that Paul (in cases iv, v and vi) or anybody concerned (in cases vii and viii) shall indeed have a feeling
or a ceiling or a peeling
that they must do as the prescription enjoins,
though you can always get another prescription enjoining you to do the opposite because that is the prescribed way of following that prescription. Thus, I get a prescription from my Doctor for opioids and because my accountant suggests that I can profitably re-sell them on the black matter, it is the latter's prescription I follow because actually taking opioids when you don't need to is a very bad fucking idea.
just as if there existed an evaluative notion of the good (or of the “better”) that was personally accepted by the person concerned, and which would make her follow the prescription.
such a notion can coexist with the notion that anybody can have any fucking notion they want but the thing is bullshit from start to finish.
Individualized obligations are imperative for the person concerned if and only if there exists a principle of authority that establishes a link between the prescriptive statement and the actual decision.
But that principle must also forbid itself as such a link because otherwise there is no obligation, there is just a chain of command.
Conversely, there is no such necessity for the case of recommendations, since the advisers have no direct authority over actions, even though they are entitled to formulate recommendations for action.
Recommendations by expert professionals are governed by imperatives- viz. professional ethics and legal obligations of various types. Equally, an office holder may be obligated to act according to the best professional advise.
As well as the argument based on the difference between the roles of advisers and deciders, a second argument for the distinction claim may be proposed, this one imported from the philosophy of science. This argument focuses on how experts frame their judgments. An expert formulates his policy recommendation based on his analysis, which is limited on two grounds. First, the framing which is imposed by his appeal to the tools and knowledge of economic science places all other knowledge – inter alia, sociological, political, ethical stakes – as a priori beyond the scope of his analysis.
Fuck off! All those things have costs and benefits which can be evaluated in money terms. This is obvious in 'justiciable' or 'reputational' fields. It is less obvious in non-justiciable or opaque contexts but those are things which factor into 'endogenous growth'.
Second, all scientific statements, and especially those of social science, are marked by uncertainty: experts may have done their analysis properly, or they may not.
That is irrelevant. Knightian Uncertainty means that there are possible states of the world which we can't envisage. But the solution is regret minimization or some sort of 'machine learning' type multiplicative weighting update algorithm.
For instance, they may later learn something which would show that they should have used other tools to complete their analysis. Similarly, new theories in economic science may be discovered, or relevant data that were previously unknown or inaccessible may become known and accessible. In all cases, such developments are likely to invalidate aspects of the former statements, or at least to induce their reconsideration or reformulation.
This is true of every sort of statement. Robert Browning wrote a poem in which he rhymed 'Pope's hat' with 'Nun's twat' in the belief that 'twat' meant the headgear of some particular type of Catholic nun. Once he discovered his error, he changed the line.
Most serious scientists will withhold full commitment from very substantive empirical claims as made at any instant t.
As will everybody speaking about anything at all. Even baby, when he says 'Goo, goo, ga, ga,' indicates that he is speaking off the record. Mummy too takes baby's remark under advisement. Daddy stresses that alleged statements attributed to his son and heir can not be taken as a legally binding commitment and suggests that their probative value, if any, is not beyond doubt, peradventure or infirmity of suspicion.
We now develop a final argument in favour of the distinction claim.
It will be as shit as the previous ones.
As we shall set out below, prescriptions entail certain descriptions.
Some do. Some don't. But this is true of any statement whatsoever which, by the way, could be a prescription or a mocking of the notion that any statement can be prescriptive since reception is all that matters.
In particular, they imply certain implicit descriptions about what should be done to conform to the standard that people generally accept: to drink what you prefer in case iv, to drink what is better for certain reasons in cases v or vi, or not to drink at all in the contexts implied in cases vii or viii.
Unless they don't. They may be received as the product of 'reverse psychology'.
Paul is supposed
by whom?
to conform to these expectations just as if there existed an evaluative notion of good or better that is commonly accepted by people.
There is in most economic contexts. It is good to sell for a high price. It is better to sell at an even higher price.
Obligations as applied to groups imply that such ‘sociological facts’ do exist,
in which case the matter is either justiciable or 'reputational' or involves 'repugnancy' or impacts on 'endogenous growth' or dynamic efficiency. There is nothing in the social or legal or political or even sexual realm which isn't economic and to which a money value can't be attached.
Economists consult lawyers to figure out what an agent or enterprise's legal obligations are and they consult PR guys to figure out about reputational costs and benefits and then have to econometric work to test different structural causal models for 'endogenous' growth or other dynamic effects.
In any case, obligations aren't 'facts'. They are contingent and therefore arguably counter-factual in nature till outcomes (e.g. Judicial decisions or voting results) are known.
while a recommendation may simply suppose that the client holds that such a case is likely to occur, or that it is worth considering as a reasonable assumption.
Nonsense! The economic expert recommends stuff to inbred nitwits or coked up tech-bros who can't tie their own shoelaces.
Concretely, this means that experts may suppose that their clients are likely to want to act according to certain principles of action that the recommendation they formulate is supposed to reflect.
Or not. Just as the defence hires an expert witness who will say what they want him to say while the prosecution does the reverse, so too with economic experts. You pay the guy who will rubberstamp what you are going to do for your own selfish reasons. Even Amartya Sen understood this.
It is therefore necessary to distinguish between two versions of prescriptive judgments: obligations, which correspond to imperative prescriptions; and recommendations, which correspond to non-imperative prescriptions, as in the expertise case.
Why? A Doctor who prescribes a low-cal diet to me knows I will continue to stuff my face with burgers. But he has a professional obligation to pretend to believe me when I say that, this time, I will definitely follow through. The same thing is true of an economic expert. Arthur Lewis wasn't stupid. He knew that Nkrumah wouldn't follow his policy prescriptions. He would do crazy shit. Still, Lewis went through the motions.
What if the Executive is legally obligated to follow the prescriptions of experts? In that case, experts may be more cautious because their reputation is on the line. But that comes under the heading of Agent Principal hazard. It has a mathematical representation as a change in the incentive matrix. This is a matter of 'mechanism design' or 'reverse game theorem'.
(3b) Armed with this distinction,
there is none unless experts act in bad faith- i.e. say one thing if they think their recommendation won't be taken up (in which case they may 'virtue signal' or act strategically) and say something else if they think their prescription will be actioned (in which case, they may 'hedge their bets' or just follow 'best practice').
let us now scrutinize further statements of prescriptive judgments which rely on other kinds of judgments. These, we will see, do indeed contain both descriptive and evaluative parts. Firstly, as was noticed in case iv, some judgments may make explicit mention of the descriptive context in which the prescription holds, or they may assume there exist descriptive contexts under which the prescription holds. Such judgments do indeed depend on certain facts, which entails that changing the facts could imply changing the judgment.
Only if people act in bad faith or act strategically or are risk averse or irrational in some other manner.
Using Sen’s vocabulary, such prescriptions are hence non-basic, in the sense that a “change in factual assumptions would entail her changing judgment" (Sen 1967:50sen1967).
This isn't the case for economics. The notion of Pareto improvement is basic. The prescription- 'allow Pareto improvements' does not 'change when factual assumptions change'. What changes is facts about whether doing x benefits at least one y without hurting any one else.
Some obligations, however, seem to escape being non-basic: such as the commandment “thou shall not kill,” which is supposed to hold in any context.
Nonsense! It is fine to kill in self-defence or to save innocents or because you are soldier or a policeman or an executioner under orders to do so.
These kinds of judgments, however, belong to the class of universal imperatives,
which is empty. However, when you hire an economic expert or an expert plumber, there are principles- e.g. more money is better than less money or shitting going down the toilet is better than shit coming out of the toilet.
rather than to the hypothetical imperatives which are proper to the expert’s recommendations, and with which we are here concerned.
In the case of economic experts, if they are asked 'what should we do to be sure of tanking the Enterprise or ruining the Economy', then there is a hypothetical imperative different from the categorical imperative for experts who are characterized as Economists.
Besides this, it is controversial to claim that such prescriptions always hold no matter what.
No. In Econ it is uncontroversial that doing more with less resources is good. Similarly, in Plumbing, it is considered a bad thing if shit comes flooding out of the toilet bowl.
Faced with a moral dilemma, we might need to accept that the commandment does not hold in specific cases, for instance for self-defense, or in the choice of killing one fetus out of twins in order that one should survive. In such cases, a very precise descriptive judgment regarding the situation is essential in order to justify the prescriptive judgment that must eventually be made.
Nonsense! This lady just said 'it is okay to kill in self-defence'. Did she give any description of such situations? No.
Incidentally, this is not an example of an 'imperative'. There is a Hohfeldian 'immunity' for self-defence killing. But it is justiciable and thus defeasible. Kant, being a fucking Kraut, didn't understand how the law works. That which is quid juris is intensional, impredicative and wholly epistemic. In other words, nobody knows what its 'extension' is. True there is Res Judicata- i.e. buck stopping- but it is arbitrary. But, going forward, who knows what the Supreme Court will uphold or overturn?
In the case of recommendations, the descriptive part is by definition supposed to exist.
only in the sense that, by definition, it is supposed to be a Bactrian camel who is sodomizing trillions of Netan-Yahoos on the rings of Uranus.
As we said above with regards the fourth element of expertise, the expert is called upon only if some factual elements are at stake.
This lady calls in an expert to prescribe to her when and how to wipe her bum. This is because if her bum is shitty is a factual matter.
For instance, an expert might suggest letting the government deficit increase during a recession,
this happens anyway
while expecting or encouraging a drop in the deficit during periods of growth: her prescriptions intimately depend on the way in which she perceives the factual context.
She clearly has shit for brains. During a recession tax revenues fall faster than government spending. The deficit is bound to rise.
Hence all prescriptions do imply certain descriptive judgments, whether implicit or explicit.
only in the sense that they imply that Bactrian camels are sodomizing Netan-Yahoos on the rings of Uranus.
(3c) Secondly, prescriptions imply certain evaluative judgments,
not to mention their entailing Bactrian camels doing disgusting things to Netan-Yahoos.
even though these are not always clearly stated. Prescriptions imply some value judgment as to what is good, better, or acceptable in the precise context of the statement. This element is necessary in order for a prescription to hold, as Hume’s guillotine entails.
Sadly, Hume's guillotine entails that Hume's guillotine entails nothing whatsoever. This is because every ought is an is and every is is an an ought from some perspective. It all depends, as Bill Clinton said, on what you mean by 'is'. Ought it not to mean 'isn't'? Consider the forensic finding that 'The President's jizz is on the intern's dress'. Oughtn't we, as patriotic Americans, take that 'is' to mean 'is not at all- perish the fucking thought'? Here the 'basic value' pertaining to what 'is' changes because it conflicts with another value viz the fact that we may not want the word to think that POTUS is a disgusting piece of shit. Thus we see all 'Values become non-basic when facts reveal they clash with other values held by the person in a moral quandary'. Indeed, we may say 'values' are strategic. It is good to appear to have good values- because more people will want to do business with you- but it is better yet if everybody else, for their own reasons, chooses to believe you do.
Even in the realm of natural science, the 'is', 'ought', distinction collapses. Suppose, I say 'that is a cat'. If cats exist and the theory of evolution is true than cats ought to exist because they have an ecological niche in the current fitness landscape. That animal looks like a cat. That's why I say 'that's a cat'. I don't say 'that may be a cat or else a shapeshifter from another planet.' This is because one oughtn't to babble nonsense based on shit you say on late night TV while high on skunk.
Sen, cretin that he is, had proposed the basic vs. non-basic value distinction because he thought this would get rid of Hume's guillotine. But, like Wittgenstein's 'atomic propositions', not a single 'basic value' has been found over the last many decades. There is no point making a distinction if nothing corresponds to it.
Some would argue that the requirement of the presence of value judgments in prescriptive statements is controversial.
It is nonsense. Prescriptions are based on principles. But principles aren't naturally value judgments. They are merely protocols or conventions. You may say 'but it is a value judgment to say toilets should not spew out shit.' Our reply is 'eat shit, you fucking retard!'
Based on a “naturalistic” view of evaluations – in Hare’s words – or as a possible consequence of the D view elaborated below (see section 4), ethical or prudential judgments are considered as mere statements of fact, so that statements implying evaluations may nevertheless not be valueloaded.
We can easily distinguish between protocol bound judgments of an objective kind and expressions of preference, taste, morality, ethics, political alignment, 'virtue signalling' etc.
Where an economic expert is solicited for a prescription, it is likely that there are protocols or customs governing the choice of parameters which are to be evaluated and, indeed, the type of Structural Causal Model that will be used.
All in all, in the case of obligation, statements of sociological facts, psychological facts, and normative facts are necessary elements to build an overall prescriptive judgment.
Not in economics. Everything save relevant economic parameters should be 'bracketed'. The advise of the economic expert may be overridden by the political expert but the psychology of the Head of Government may play the decisive role.
Under the previous example of judging the rightness of a public deficit
Economists aren't asked to judge rightness. Is the PSBR inflationary or likely to cause a crowding out effect by raising the real interest rate? What will it do to the Credit rating and the exchange rate? How will it impact financial markets. Consider Liz Truss/ David Kwarteng's plan to cut taxes while increasing government expenditure. This caused the price of gilts to fall at a time when many institutional investors had Liability-driven Investment (LDI) strategies. This meant a rise in gilt yields triggered collateral calls creating a vicious circle forcing the Central Bank to intervene. It turned out, Kwarteng, whose PhD was in Econ History, didn't know that Pension funds were over-reliant on LDI. Posh Tory lads- especially of the coloured persuasion- are supposed to know stuff like that.
by appeal to automatic stabilizers, the expert supposes that there exists an outside evaluative statement which says that it is good to use the state budget for macroeconomic purposes, and that it is good to stabilize economic conditions.
Why stop there? Why not say, the expert supposes that it is good to breathe air rather than suffocate? It is bad to eat your own shit.
If these premisses did not hold, quite apart from the knowledge of the theory of automatic stabilizers and of the actual shape of the economy, the expert would not be able to derive any recommendation, but would have to be content with mere descriptions.
How fucking stupid is this expert?
In the case of recommendations, it is necessary to have some idea of the likelihood that the principles under which the prescription is formulated would be well received by the client, as well as a statement of the value judgments.
Also. Doctors should have some idea of the likelihood that their patients don't want to be sick. Perhaps, this could be achieved by this lady Professor eating her own shit. At any rate, that is my prescription.
(4) It now is time to summarize the conclusions we have reached so far, and conclude on the proper way to analyze value demarcation in expertise.
This is easily done in Economics. There are indices for various things like 'Inequality', 'Environmental impact', 'Quality of Life' and so forth.
Experts’ prescriptions, which I here call recommendations, are not compulsory even where they comprise recommendations for action deriving from a mix of both descriptive and evaluative judgments. Description is the ground for neutral scientific work,
No. Description is communicative in nature even if Observation is wholly scientific. Thus cyanide is described as smelling like bitter almonds- which isn't always the case. But astronomic observations concerning the presence of cyanide in a comet don't rely on smell for obvious reasons.
and it contains a fortiori no value judgments.
No. Descriptions are communicative. Some judgment about the value of a communication is always made because the thing has an opportunity cost. When I make observations- e.g. you are as ugly as shit- it is clear that I value being an asshole. When you say this to me, you are answering my question as to why women run away from me. Oddly, this is reassuring. I thought it was because they sensed I have a needle-dick. Men don't mind being ugly provided people think they have a ginormous dick.
Nevertheless, among the scope of true assertions, the formulation of a descriptive judgment entails the responsibility of selecting, among all possible descriptions, the relevant one for the actual objective of this description.
No it doesn't. Why not say 'wiping your ass entails the responsibility of selecting, among all possible methods of removing shit from around your anus, the relevant one for that actual objective.'
This selection task is called for by a distinct type of judgment – evaluation –
did you know that you are responsible for evaluating all possible methods of wiping your ass before you actually wipe your ass? The fact that it never even once considered the possibility of chopping off your leg and using it to wipe your ass shows you are totes irresponsible. How dare you even think about becoming a parent? Only a responsible person should be allowed to change a baby's nappy. You are too irresponsible to wipe your own ass in the manner prescribed by a crazy French Professor who, on the evidence, is even stupider than Amartya Sen.
which in turn has been selected in order to derive a prescription.
Sen banged on about 'evaluation' because the MIT India Team had persuaded Pitambar Pant to do, wholly useless, 'Project Evaluation' as part of India's 5 year plans.
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