I shall now undertake an evaluation of Pareto's place in the de-
velopment of economic science. In particular, I shall focus attention
on Pareto's contribution in relation to modern methodological po-
sitions. The choice of modern methodological positions as a criterion
for evaluating the significance of Pareto's methodology presents some
difficulties, since many of the issues discussed in this study are far
from resolved. Nevertheless, there are prevailing views, and these
will be presented in this chapter.

The problem of ethical neutrality serves as a good example of an
issue that is far from resolved. At first glance, a casual inspection of
the literature on the subject would seem to indicate that modern sci-
entific opinion ranges (as it did in Pareto's time) from the view that
economics cannot be anything but an ethical discipline to the view
that "positive" economics is independent of any ethical position or
normative judgments. For instance, T. W. Hutchison has recently
argued that Joan Robinson, G. Myrdal, and A. Smithies hold the
former opinion, while G. Haberler, M. Friedman, G. Stigler, and
L. Robbins are of the latter opinion. ¹ He further states that the point
of view which claims that "positive" economics is independent of any
ethical or normative judgments is the "orthodox" view. ² Also, he
takes the stance that the possible separation of (value-free) "positive"
economics and "normative" economics "was almost a basic tenet of
the 'orthodox' methodology of economics for about a hundred years
from Nassau Senior and J. S. Mill, through Caimes, J. N. Keynes,
Pareto and Max Weber, down to Robbins and Friedman." ³ Finally

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