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Welfare and Rational Care

Stephen Darwall

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Paperback

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English
Princeton University Press
26 October 2004
"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."
By:  
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Edition:   New edition
Volume:   12
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 140mm,  Spine: 11mm
Weight:   170g
ISBN:   9780691092539
ISBN 10:   0691092532
Series:   Princeton Monographs in Philosophy
Pages:   152
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Acknowledgments ix CHAPTER I: Welfare's Normativity 1 CHAPTER II: Welfare and Care 22 CHAPTER III: Empathy, Sympathy, Care 50 CHAPTER IV: Valuing Activity: Golub's Smile 73 Notes 105 References 123 Index 133

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 for Welfare and Rational Care

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


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