Dale Dorsey (Sommerville College, Oxford): 'On the Normativity of Welfare'
Abstract: Welfare seems to be normative. That some action will harm me or someone else seems a reason not to do it, that it will benefit me seems reason to do it. But if welfare is normative, what is the status of its normativity? How is it normative? And what does that tell us about the nature of, and constraints on, substantive theories of the good? In this paper, I distinguish three methods of understanding welfare's normativity---conceptual, a priori, and a posteriori normativism, and argue that the two former models, though popular, cannot be sustained. If welfare is normative, this is a fact that will be determined only after, and not prior to, substantive investigation into the prudential good and into the nature and content of practical rationality.
Workshop in Moral Philosophy Convenor: David Owens
