What is a "social issue"?

People talk commonly and, as it were, naturally about "social issues" as constituting a nest of
issues distinct from the "economic" ones.

It is not self evident what this means. After all, economics and sociology don't differ in their
subject matter. They differ in their methods. If an economic issue is one an economist might
discuss using the tools of his science, then everything human is an economic issue, for
nothing is alien to supply and demand. And in that case, the separate nest of "social issues,"
the other half of the customary dichotomy, dissolves.

Yet since it hasn't in fact dissolved, let's try to answer the question in the heading above. What
counts as a “social” issue, as distinct from an issue within any other classifications, is largely
a subjective matter. Broadly speaking, though, “social issues” are efforts to answer the question
“what kind of a person do I think I am?” in the first instance and, collectively, “what kind of a society
do we think we are?”  They are issues defined by and defining a culture, or perhaps an arrangement
of accommodation among multiple cultures that have to live together.

The social issues under debate in the United States today include: the legalization of marijuana,
considered as a reliever of pain, a source of adult recreation, and perhaps as an expander of minds;
the “Black Lives Matter” movement with its deliberate echoes of the civil rights protests of the
mid 20th century; and the extent of widespread civilian gun ownership in the United States,
challenged anew every time there is a mass shooting -- and there are, alas, many such times.  

Each of these issues has many dimensions and could be considered (should be considered),
in economic terms as well. But when we think of any if these in "social issue" terms, we are thinking of
those economic impacts as incidental. Our focus is on the who-are-we and perhaps as well who
do we aspire to be.