This is a substantially revised version of the first edition. Some of the chapters have been largely rewritten, notably the chapters on ‘happiness’, the valuation of life and the problem of equality. In addition, Chapter 1 of the first edition has been scrapped and substantial changes have been made to all the opening chapters in order to bring out more clearly the main theme of this book. This is an attempt to provide a simple method for analysing any problem in economic policy. The method is basically a distinction between what parts of the problem are questions of fact and what parts are questions of value judgement.

这是第一版的大幅修订版。其中一些章节已经被大量改写，尤其是关于“幸福”、生命价值和平等问题的章节。此外，第一版的第一章被取消，所有的开篇章节都作了实质性的修改，以使本书的主题更加清晰。本文试图为分析经济政策中的任何问题提供一种简单的方法。这个方法基本上是区分问题的哪些部分是事实问题，哪些部分是价值判断问题。