The Positive-Normative Distinction before the Fact-Value Distinction

This paper is a defense for intertwined relationship of economics and ethics or more specifically, of positive aspects of economics and normative ones. To show this, a detailed historical survey of the relationship from the ancient Greek up to Lionel Robbins is presented. A more attention is paid to the position of economics within the premodern structure of sciences and the map of practical sciences therein. Even after that increasing growth of the content of moral philosophy or ethics and the push for specialization gave birth to the economics, it is observed, throughout the whole classic period and the early neoclassic, that economists unanimously believe in simultaneous study of positive and normative issues in economics. The point emphasized by the author is that the impression that positive-normative distinction is based on fact-value distinction (and the well known first theorem of Hume) is against what historical study shows; furthermore it could lead us to a theoretical dead end. The fact-value distinction is a latecomer in the philosophy of social sciences; while the life of positive-normative distinction could be traced back to the ancient Greek without causing the normative concerns put away or omitted.