Values, Agency, and Welfare

Bibliographic Data

ID23160331
AuthorsJason R Raibley (California State University, Long Beach, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume41
Issue1
Pages187-214
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Topics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0276-2080 • E-ISSN: 2154-154X
PublisherPhilosophy Documentation Center (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5840/philtopics20134119
OpenAlexW2052149307
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited27

The values-based approach to welfare holds that it is good for one to realize goals, activities, and relationships with which one strongly (and stably) identifies. This approach preserves the subjectivity of welfare while affirming that a life well lived must be active, engaged, and subjectively meaningful. As opposed to more objective theories, it is unified, naturalistic, and ontologically parsimonious. However, it faces objections concerning the possibility of self-sacrifice, disinterested and paradoxical values, and values that are out of sync with physical and emotional needs. This paper revises the values-based approach, emphasizing the important—but limited—role consciously held values play in human agency. The additional components of human agency in turn explain why it is important for one’s values to cohere with one’s fixed drives, hardwired emotional responses, and nonvolitionally guided cognitive processes. This affords promising responses to the objections above.

Agency (philosophy) · Economics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Market economy · Welfare · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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Open DOIOpen Access