I just finished reading Simon Keller’s “Welfare and the Achievement of Goals” for the second time. I had read it earlier when it was just a draft, but I decided that I should read it again now that it appears in the October 2004 issue […] Read More
It’s my pleasure to welcome David Sobel as a contributor to PEASoup. David’s currently the chair of the department of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, and he’s published several excellent articles over the years on welfare and practical reason. We’re very happy to have […] Read More
On behalf of all of us here at PEA Soup, I extend a warm welcome to Kyle Swan, who, happily, has accepted our invitation to be a contributor. Kyle is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota Duluth, specializes in ethical theory, […] Read More
Hello everyone. I’m moving Jamie’s pointer from several days ago to this post so the information doesn’t get buried in the comments. The program page can be found here. Thanks for the heads-up, Jamie. The program page now includes links to the papers. The keynote […] Read More
We should distinguish between a harmful state and a harmful event. A harmful state (sometimes called a harmed condition) is a state that it is prudentially bad to be in. A harmful event is an event that causes a person to be in a harmful […] Read More
Consider the following example from Parfit’s Reasons and Persons: When I was young what I most wanted was to be a poet. This desire was not conditional on its own persistence. I did not want to be a poet only if this would later still […] Read More
Ronald Dworkin argues, in two lengthy papers (“What is Equality? Parts 1 and 2”, P&PA 1981), that, if we care about equality at all, then we should care about equality of resources — as opposed to, in particular, equality of welfare. Central to his argument […] Read More
I was browsing some of the blogs over at Experimental Philosophy the other day, and it got me thinking about something weird that has happened in every ethics course I have taught to date. The class will be discussing hedonism (about welfare), and I present […] Read More
Ever come across an argument that you just know can’t be right but you can’t pin down its flaw? I had that experience recently while reading an older paper on punishment, Alan Wertheimer’s “Deterrence and retribution.” (Ethics 86 (1976): 181-199) Quick background: Retributivists about criminal […] Read More