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Welfare and Rational Care

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Welfare and Rational Care
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Stephen Darwall
SeriesPrinceton Monographs in Philosophy
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:152
Dimensions(mm): Height 216,Width 140
Category/GenreEthics and moral philosophy
ISBN/Barcode 9780691092539
ClassificationsDewey:177.7
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Illustrations 1 halftone

Publishing Details

Publisher Princeton University Press
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publication Date 15 August 2004
Publication Country United States

Description

What kind of life best ensures human welfare? Since the ancient Greeks, this question has been as central to ethical philosophy as to ordinary reflection. But what exactly is welfare? This question has suffered from relative neglect. And, as Stephen Darwall shows, it has done so at a price. Presenting a provocative new "rational care theory of welfare," Darwall proves that a proper understanding of welfare fundamentally changes how we think about what is best for people. Most philosophers have assumed that a person's welfare is what is good from her point of view, namely, what she has a distinctive reason to pursue. In the now standard terminology, welfare is assumed to have an "agent-relative normativity." Darwall by contrast argues that someone's good is what one should want for that person insofar as one cares for her. Welfare, in other words, is normative, but not peculiarly for the person whose welfare is at stake. In addition, Darwall makes the radical proposal that something's contributing to someone's welfare is the same thing as its being something one ought to want for her own sake, insofar as one cares.Darwall defends this theory with clarity, precision, and elegance, and with a subtle understanding of the place of sympathetic concern in the rich psychology of sympathy and empathy. His forceful arguments will change how we understand a concept central to ethics and our understanding of human bonds and human choices.

Author Biography

Stephen Darwall is John Dewey Collegiate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He has written widely on the history and the foundations of ethics, and is the author of "Impartial Reason, The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought': 1640-1740", and "Philosophical Ethics". He is also Associate Editor of "Ethics".

Reviews

"Darwall sets a new standard for discussion... [He] is notably clear and noble about the sources of his claims, and he has an immensely illuminative way with the history of ethics."--A.E. Wengraf, Philosophical Inquiry "Anyone who cares for ethics and conceptual analysis has good reasons to engage with the close reasoning in this book."--Richard J. Arneson, Ethics "I warmly recommend the book. Darwall's prose is as elegant and captivating as ever, and anyone with an interest in welfare, metaethics, or moral psychology will find useful things."--Jonas Olson, Economics and Philosophy