Against Welfare Subjectivism

Noûs 51 (2):354-377 (2017)
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Abstract

Subjectivism about welfare is the view that something is basically good for you if and only if, and to the extent that, you have the right kind of favorable attitude toward it under the right conditions. I make a presumptive case for the falsity of subjectivism by arguing against nearly every extant version of the view. My arguments share a common theme: theories of welfare should be tested for what they imply about newborn infants. Even if a theory is intended to apply only to adults, the fact that it is false of newborns may give us sufficient reason to reject it.

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Eden Lin
Ohio State University

Citations of this work

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References found in this work

Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - New York: Basic Books.
Principia ethica.George Edward Moore - 1903 - Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Edited by Thomas Baldwin.
Mortal questions.Thomas Nagel - 1979 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Welfare, happiness, and ethics.L. W. Sumner - 1996 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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