Positivism and the Separation of Law and Economics

The goal of this essay is to explain this problem and to translate the meaning of positivism between legal and economic cultures, in order to show economists and lawyers why much of the debate about the jurisprudential merits of law and economics misses the mark. My thesis is that it is positivism, and the way economic culture treats the positive-normative distinction, that is responsible for much of the gulf between law and economics – but that it is also positivism that makes economics so appealing to so many lawyers and legal scholars. For a positivist approach can be useful to lawyers as an instrument for pursuing many of their own professional ends.