Value Welfare And Morality

This book addresses critical issues in normative ethical theory. Every such theory must contain not only a theory of motivation but also a theory of value, and the link that is often forged between what is valuable and what would be right is human welfare or well-being. This topic is a subject of considerable controversy in contemporary ethics, not least because of the current reconsideration of utilitarianism. Indeed, there is as much disagreement about the nature of value and its relationship to welfare and morality, as there is about the substantive content of normative ethical theories. The essays in this collection, all new and written by a distinguished team of moral philosophers, provide an overview, analysis, and an attempted resolution of those controversies. They constitute the most rigorous available account of the relationship among value, welfare, and morality.

This book addresses critical issues in normative ethical theory. Every such theory must contain not only a theory of motivation but also a theory of value, and the link that is often forged between what is valuable and what would be right is human welfare or well-being. This topic is a subject of considerable controversy in contemporary ethics, not least because of the current reconsideration of utilitarianism. Indeed, there is as much disagreement about the nature of value and its relationship to welfare and morality, as there is about the substantive content of normative ethical theories. The essays in this collection, all new and written by a distinguished team of moral philosophers, provide an overview, analysis, and an attempted resolution of those controversies. They constitute the most rigorous available account of the relationship among value, welfare, and morality.

This volume revisits the history of welfare economics, showing that economists have regularly drawn on ethical values for practical issues.

Moral philosophers agree that welfare matters. But they disagree about what it is, or how much it matters. Wayne Sumner presents an original theory of welfare, investigating its nature and discussing its importance. He considers and rejects all notable theories of welfare, both objective and subjective, including hedonism and theories founded on desire or preference. His own theory connects welfare closely with happiness or life satisfaction. Reacting against the value pluralism that currently dominates moral philosophy, he advances welfare as the only basic ethical value. He concludes by discussing the implications of this thesis for ethical and political theory. Written in clear, non-technical language, and including a definitive survey of other work in this area, Sumner's book is essential reading for moral philosophers, political theorists, and welfare economists.

Welfare, Meaning, and Worth argues that there is more to what makes a life worth living than welfare, and that a good life does not consist of what is merely good for the one who lives it. Smuts defends an objective list theory that states that the notion of worth captures matters of importance for which no plausible theory of welfare can account. He puts forth that lives worth living are net high in various objective goods, including pleasure, meaning, knowledge, and loving relationships. The first part of the book presents a theory of worth, a mental statist account of welfare, and an objectivist theory of meaning. The second part explores the implications for moral theory, the popularity of painful art, and the viability of pessimism about the human condition. This book offers an original exploration of worth as a combination of welfare and meaning that will be of interest to philosophers and ethicists who work on issues in well-being and positive psychology.

What is the purpose of the economy? To answer this intriguing and fundamental question, this book provides a systematic approach to economic ethics and constructs a relationship between the economy and morality; it expounds theoretical and practical issues of economic philosophy along two dimensions: values and institutions. On the dimension of values, Yuichi Shionoya explores the connections between the economy and morality by reconstructing a coherent system of ethics that coordinates the 'good, right, and virtue'. Based on this system of ethics, the book goes on to discuss the dimension of institutions and presents the philosophy of the welfare state, consisting of a tripartite contemporary institution of 'capitalism, democracy, and social security'. Economy and Morality is a remarkable contribution to economic ethics exploring key philosophical issues including efficiency versus justice and liberty versus excellence. Its unique emphasis is the economics of virtue, which is concerned with the virtuous utilization of economic resources for human development, and applied to the reform of the welfare state. Economists, philosophers and scholars of social policy and the welfare state will all find this book of great interest - part of its appeal lying in its interdisciplinary approach to contemporary economic, political and social systems based on the synthesis of moral values.

Freedom of the sort implicated in acting freely or with free will is important to the truth of different sorts of moral judgment, such as judgments of moral responsibility and those of moral obligation. Little thought, however, has been invested into whether appraisals of good or evil presuppose free will. This important topic has not commanded the attention it deserves owing to what is perhaps a prevalent assumption that freedom leaves judgments concerning good and evil largely unaffected. The central aim of this book is to dispute this assumption by arguing for the relevance of free will to the truth of two sorts of such judgment: welfare-ranking judgments or judgments of personal well-being (when is one's life intrinsically good for the one who lives it?), and world-ranking judgments (when is a possible world intrinsically better than another?). The book also examines free will’s impact on the truth of such judgments for central issues in moral obligation and in the free will debate. This book should be of interest to those working on intrinsic value, personal well-being, moral obligation, and free will.

Elizabeth Anderson offers a new theory of value and rationality that rejects cost-benefit analysis in our social lives and in our ethical theories. This account of the plurality of values thus offers a new approach, beyond welfare economics and traditional theories of justice, for assessing the ethical limitations of the market. In this light, Anderson discusses several contemporary controversies involving the proper scope of the market, including commercial surrogate motherhood, privatization of public services, and the application of cost-benefit analysis to issues of environmental protection. Table of Contents: Preface 1. A Pluralist Theory of Value A Rational Attitude Theory of Value Ideals and Self-Assessment How Goods Differ in Kind (I): Different Modes of Valuation How Goods Differ in Kind (II): Social Relations of Realization 2. An Expressive Theory of Rational Action Value and Rational Action The Framing of Decisions The Extrinsic Value of States of Affairs Consequentialism Practical Reason and the Unity of the Self 3. Pluralism and Incommensurable Goods The Advantages of Consequentialism A Pragmatic Theory of Comparative Value Judgments Incommensurable Goods Rational Choice among Incommensurable Goods 4. Self-Understanding, the Hierarchy of Values, and Moral Constraints The Test of Self-Understanding The Hierarchy of Values Agent-Centered Restrictions Hybrid Consequentialism A Self-Effacing Theory of Practical Reason? 5. Criticism, Justification, and Common Sense A Pragmatic Account of Objectivity The Thick Conceptual Structure of the Space of Reasons How Common Sense Can Be Self-Critical Why We Should Ignore Skeptical Challenges to Common Sense 6. Monistic Theories of Value Monism Moore's Aesthetic Monism Hedonism Rational Desire Theory 7. The Ethical Limitations of the Market Pluralism, Freedom, and Liberal Politics The Ideals and Social Relations of the Modern Market Civil Society and the Market Personal Relations and the Market Political Goods and the Market The Limitations of Market Ideologies 8. Is Women's Labor a Commodity? The Case of Commercial Surrogate Motherhood Children as Commodities Women's Labor as a Commodity Contract Pregnancy and the Status of Women Contract Pregnancy, Freedom, and the Law 9. Cost-Benefit Analysis, Safety, and Environmental Quality Cost-Benefit Analysis as a Form of Commodification Autonomy, Labor Markets, and the Value of Life Citizens, Consumers, and the Value of the Environment Toward Democratic Alternatives to Cost-Benefit Analysis Conclusion Notes References Index Reviews of this book: Anderson/auhtor is anxious to combat what she sees as a tendency for commercial values to invade areas of human life where they do not belong...A useful contribution to debate about the proper scope of the market. "Not everything is a commodity, insists Anderson, and her brief should shake up social science technocrats." DD--Philadelphia Inquirer "The book is rich in both argument and application." DD--Alan Hamlin, Times Higher Education Supplement "In this rich and insightful book Elizabeth Anderson develops an original account of value and rational action and then employs this account to address the pragmatic political question of what the proper range of the market should be. Anderson's principal targets are consequentialism, monism and the crude 'economistic' reasoning which underpins much contemporary social policy...This is an important book...For anyone interested in political philosophy this is essential reading." DD--A. J. Walsh, Australasian Journal of Philosophy --Hugo Dixon, Financial Times [UK] Reviews of this book: Not everything is a commodity, insists Anderson, and her brief should shake up social science technocrats. --Philadelphia Inquirer Reviews of this book: The book is rich in both argument and application. --Alan Hamlin, Times Higher Education Supplement Reviews of this book: In this rich and insightful book Elizabeth Anderson develops an original account of value and rational action and then employs this account to address the pragmatic political question of what the proper range of the market should be. Anderson's principal targets are consequentialism, monism and the crude 'economistic' reasoning which underpins much contemporary social policy...This is an important book...For anyone interested in political philosophy this is essential reading. --A. J. Walsh, Australasian Journal of Philosophy