IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/utilit/v22y2010i01p36-51_99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Critique of Sumner's Account of Welfare

Author

Listed:
  • TUPA, ANTON

Abstract

Wayne Sumner, in the first six chapters of his excellent book Welfare, Happiness and Ethics, argues for what he calls an authentic life satisfaction theory of welfare. Somewhat generally, Sumner's theory of welfare is a sophisticated subjective account that treats one's happiness of a certain sort, and in the right conditions, as enhancing one's welfare. In this essay, I critically explore Sumner's account of welfare. I argue that Sumner's arguments for his own account of welfare, when followed to their logical conclusion, support a position which is slightly, but significantly, different from his own position. Additionally, I argue that Sumner's account of welfare has several counter-intuitive implications. I conclude that his account is seriously flawed.

Suggested Citation

  • Tupa, Anton, 2010. "A Critique of Sumner's Account of Welfare," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 36-51, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:22:y:2010:i:01:p:36-51_99
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0953820809990367/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:22:y:2010:i:01:p:36-51_99. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/uti .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.