A barrier "to critical engagement with welfare economics as a framework is that it is frequently presented as rising above the very idea of a framework ... its models are presented as the only available “scientific” descriptions of ... social reality." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3781762

"Descriptions of its form of moral analysis are portrayed as either the only neutral and precise way of sorting good from bad outcomes or as perfectly compatible with any moral concern one might come up with. Its baseline ... assumptions are presented as the 'standard view'..."

"...from which any dissenting account must articulate its variations. One artifact of this self-concept of welfare economics as a non-framework is that arguments that any given area of regulation should be guided by [it] are often articulated in the language of welfare economics"

"That is, the framework is assumed and then the argument for the framework takes place within the framework."
-- @LDHerrine