玉手 慎太郎

Japanese Marxian philosopher Satoshi Matsui has constructed the "normative theory of socialism" in contrast to the normative theories of liberalism by reading Marx faithfully and investigating controversies about Marx's normative aspects. This paper examines his arguments by comparing them with the views of John Rawls on normative theories and justice. Matsui's normative theory of socialism has centers on Marx's normative "principle" and the change in the role of such a principle in correspondence with the development of society. The latter is more important. According to the Marx's theory of the development of society, namely, "historical materialism," society will necessarily reach communism(the second stage of socialism) after capitalism and via socialism(the first stage of socialism). In the society of socialism, Matsui says, the normative theories of liberalism work well in improving people's lives, but in the society of communism, the normative theories of liberalism must be substituted by the normative principle of Marx. This two-level use of normative theory is the main point of Matsui's normative theory of socialism. Matsui's theory is problematic at two points. First, the justification of his theory is based entirely on historical materialism, so it is not persuasive for non-Marxians unless historical materialism is justified logically or empirically. Second, even if historical materialism is justified successfully, it breaks a condition of normative theories of liberalism ("circumstances of justice" in Rawls's terms), so that we can say nothing about the superiority of Marx's normative principles to those of liberalism because they do not share this condition in common. The "circumstances of justice" condition, however, inescapably introduces "alienation" in Marx's sense. The "circumstances of justice" is a common premise of normative theories of liberalism, and the concept of alienation points out a fundamental problem with normative theories of liberalism. Matsui's failure lies in his use of historical materialism as a ground of justification. The core of the normative theory of socialism, in contrast of normative theories of liberalism, is the concept of alienation, while historical materialism is just a device of Marx's for the abolition of alienation. All normative theorists(not only Marxian but also non-Marxian)must consider seriously the choice between the variety of lives under alienation and the uniformity of lives following the abolition of alienation.

This paper aims to reexamine the positions on the value judgment in economics, by using the classification of the "value judgment of the subject" and the "value judgment of the object". The former is the value judgment of the researcher of economics, while the latter is the value judgment of the object of research, namely the motivation of the actor in economic studies. This classification can clarify the point of the contrast between Amartya Sen and Lionel Robbins about economic methodology. It is well known that Robbins eliminated any value judgments from economics, and strictly separated economics from ethics. However, in fact, he eliminated value judgments only in the field of economic science, and he explicitly needed value judgments in his field of political economy. So, the contrast between Sen, who emphasizes the interaction between economics and ethics, and Robbins is not about whether economists should consider value judgments. (Both of them would say "yes" in response to this question.) It must be about whether economists can ignore value judgments in some fields of study in economics. (Only Sen would deny this possibility.) Robbins based his proposition about the objectivity of economics on that of Max Weber. Robbins regarded Weber's Wertfreiheit as an attitude that considered people's value judgments as matters of fact. Robbins believed that we can treat people's value judgments as fact without our own value judgment (namely the value judgment of the subject). This means that Robbins eliminated value judgments of the subject from economic science but took account of value judgments of the object as fact. However, Robbins's understanding is not correct. Surely, Weber insisted that we could treat value judgments of the object as fact. However, in addition, Weber also insisted that in social sciences we cannot eliminate value judgments of the subject; therefore, we must use some Idealtypus in studies. From the perspective of Weber, social science cannot be wertfrei by merely taking the value judgments of the object as fact. In contrast to Robbins, Sen regards both value judgments of the subject and of the object as being inescapable in economics. His proposition about the inescapability of value is based on the philosophy of Hilary Putnam. Putnam points out the collapse of the fact-value dichotomy. He insisted that not only normative analyses but also descriptions and prescriptions are entangled with values (Putnam calls it "the entanglement of fact and value".) All descriptions premise some epistemic values, for example "coherence". Moreover, some descriptions, for example "cruel", essentially involve ethical values. From the perspective of Putnam, Sen concludes that we cannot ignore value judgments in any fields of study in economics. Both welfare economics and descriptive economics need to consider value judgments, not only of the object but also of the subject. In economic studies, we must investigate the way in which description and normative analysis are studied at the same time.