Preferences and Well-Being

A collection of papers by moral philosophers and philosophers of economics on the subject.

Serena Olsaretti (Edited by)

9780521695589, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 23 October 2006

279 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.402 kg

Preferences are often thought to be relevant for well-being: respecting preferences, or satisfying them, contributes in some way to making people's lives go well for them. A crucial assumption that accompanies this conviction is that there is a normative standard that allows us to discriminate between preferences that do, and those that do not, contribute to well-being. The papers collected in this volume, written by moral philosophers and philosophers of economics, explore a number of central issues concerning the formulation of such a normative standard. They examine what a defensible account of how preferences should be formed for them to contribute to well-being should look like; whether preferences are subject to requirements of rationality and what reasons we have to prefer certain things over others; and what the significance is, if any, of preferences that are arational or not conducive to well-being.

Introduction Serena Olsaretti
1. Desire formation and human good Richard Arneson
2. Preference formation and personal good Connie S. Rosati
3. Leading a life of one's own: on well-being and narrative autonomy Johan Brännmark
4. Well-being, adaptation and human limitations Mozaffar Qizilbash
5. Consequentialism and preference formation in economics and game theory Daniel M. Hausman
6. Preferences, deliberation and satisfaction Philip Pettit
7. Content-related and attitude-related reasons for preferences Christian Piller
8. Reasoning with preferences? John Broome
9. Taking unconsidered preferences seriously Robert Sugden
10. Preferences, paternalism and liberty Cass R. Sustein and Richard H. Thaler
11. Preference change and interpersonal comparisons of welfare Alex Voorhoeve.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS], Philosophy [HP]