Harvard political scientist Harvey Mansfield suggests, in the Weekly Standard, that economics should turn away from false positivism and toward a science of virtue:
Overconfidence in overcoming chance is the way of life recommended by economists. It is the way of life known as progress by liberals and as growth by conservatives, who are secretly united by overconfidence in their knowledge of the future which they describe diversely and call by different names. This recommended overconfidence transforms the predictions of economists into overall advice—not advice with a condition, such as if you want to get rich, do this, but advice on how to live while getting and being rich. Of course economics has been known as the dismal science because it confronts human necessities with the fact of scarcity, and in theories of overpopulation like that of Malthus, it may find that we will not get as much as we need. But it could also be called, whether dismal or promising, the triumphal or hubristic science for what it claims to be able to predict.
Now, the main consequence of living the over-confident life is to believe that virtue is not necessary. Perhaps this is the main cause as well as consequence of that life. Virtue is a chancy quality because you may not have it or live up to it. It seems less reliable than self-interest with its allies, fear and greed. Everybody has self-interest, which is not true of virtue. But at least virtue does not depend on predicting the future. On the contrary, virtue is a resource for everyone when bad times come—something to fall back on, to give cheer, to restore. On top of that, virtue will save you from being corrupted by good fortune as well. This is the great truth taught by the Stoics.
Continue reading at the Weekly Standard.