Measuring life's goodness

Philosophical Books 48 (4):303-319 (2007)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Philosophers often assume that we can somehow quantitatively measure how good things are for people. But what does such talk mean? And what are the measures? In *Weighing Goods* John Broome offers one treatment of these questions. In his later *Weighing Lives* he offers a different treatment. This article discusses both positions but advocates a third. But while the three positions disagree about matters of meaning, they agree about the form of the measures. Roughly speaking, they are such that the goodness of a lottery for an individual is equal to its expected goodness for her.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Utilitarianism and prioritarianism I.David Mccarthy - 2006 - Economics and Philosophy 22 (3):335-363.
Broome on Moral Goodness and Population Ethics.Peter Vallentyne - 2009 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (3):739 - 746.
Right and Good.John Broome - 2004 - In Weighing lives. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 30-49.
Keeping Things Simple.Roger Crisp - 2015 - In Iwao Hirose & Andrew Reisner, Weighing and Reasoning: Themes from the Philosophy of John Broome. New York, NY: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 139-155.
Features of Goodness.John Broome - 2004 - In Weighing lives. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 50-77.
Some Technical Matters.John Broome - 2004 - In Weighing lives. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 20-29.
Quantities of Lifetime Wellbeing.John Broome - 2004 - In Weighing lives. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 78-98.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-10

Downloads
136 (#324,693)

6 months
7 (#1,400,515)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

David McCarthy
University of Hong Kong

Citations of this work

The Risk-Priority View.Pietro Cibinel - forthcoming - Economics and Philosophy.
Individual Risks and their Social Outcomes.Pietro Cibinel - 2025 - Dissertation, Princeton University
The priority view.David McCarthy - 2017 - Economics and Philosophy 33 (2):215–57.
Distributing Welfare vs. Welfare Goods.Pietro Cibinel - forthcoming - Philosophical Perspectives.
Utilitarianism and prioritarianism II.David McCarthy - 2008 - Economics and Philosophy 24 (1):1-33.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Quotation.Herman Cappelen, Ernest Lepore & Matthew McKeever - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
How to define theoretical terms.David Lewis - 1970 - Journal of Philosophy 67 (13):427-446.
Models and reality.Hilary Putnam - 1980 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 45 (3):464-482.

View all 12 references / Add more references