 A related point can be made when people assert that economic structures and policy should be left to economists, or when people assert that economic policy can be pursued without reference to distributive justice. These assertions reveal misconceptions about what distributive justice and economics are, and how they are related. Positive economics, at its best, can tell us about economic causes and effects. Positive economics is very important for distributive justice because it can give us guidance about which changes to pursue in order to better instantiate our moral principles. What it cannot do, in the absence of the principles, is tell us what we should do. This point is easily lost in everyday political discussion. When an economist says ‘The Central Bank should raise interest rates’, the general population often, mistakenly, believes the recommendation is purely coming from the science of economics. Moreover the ‘should’ is almost always a moral ‘should’. When economists make such a recommendation they, sometimes unconsciously, have taken off their social scientific hat. They are employing alongside their positive economic theory, a moral principle. Suppressing, either consciously or unconsciously, that there are always moral arguments being employed in arguments about what economic policies a government should pursue has had the effect of creating misconceptions about the respective roles of positive economics and distributive justice in government decision-making.