For a long time now, economists have followed a utilitarian guideline. They don’t input their own personal values, but rather assess what people value and organize economic policy to optimize it. What is good is whatever people want. What people don’t want isn’t good.
I’m not a utilitarian. Most people aren’t. Most people don’t believe that I shouldn’t be able to kill my wife even if I find her annoying and she’s depressed so I value her death more than she values her life. I’m fine with assuming that utilitarianism is a false ethical theory, while maintaining that in so far as government policy goes, utilitarianism should be the goal. I don’t think one has to assume anything more than that in so far as government is a morally permissible agency, government is for the people rather than the other way around. I don’t think that government is a morally permissible agency, lawmakers and enforcers do not live in a separate moral sphere than the rest of us. But if I should think past that conclusion, then the best government can do is enact utilitarian policy which economists try so hard to identify.
Perhaps an analogy is if I’m going to, say, rob the rich to give to the poor. You might say, “hey, it isn’t right to steal”, but then contend, “if you are going to steal, don’t give it to that guy over there because he’s not actually poor.”
