The basic minimum
Subtitle: a welfarist approach
By: Dale Dorsey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 217
ISBN-13: 9781107017115
Subjects: Basic needs; Philosophy; PHILOSOPHY / Political; Political science; Political ethics
Description: "A common presupposition in contemporary moral and political philosophy is that individuals should be provided with some basic threshold of goods, capabilities, or well-being. But if there is such a basic minimum, how should this be understood? Dale Dorsey offers an underexplored answer: that the basic minimum should be characterized not as the achievement of a set of capabilities, or as access to some specified bundle of resources, but as the maintenance of a minimal threshold of human welfare. In addition, Dorsey argues that though political institutions should be committed to the promotion of this minimal threshold, we should reject approaches that seek to cast the basic minimum as a human right. His book will be important for all who are interested in theories of political morality"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Preface; Introduction and limits; 1. On the concept (and some conceptions) of the basic minimum; 2. A welfarist basic minimum; 3. Adaptive preferences; 4. The intrinsic value of the basic minimum; 5. Against rights; 6. On objections to welfarism; Bibliography.