ABSTRACT
Welfarism-at least in the sense I’m interested in discussing-refers to the suggestion that this evaluative concept-welfare-is the only thing that makes a normative difference. Utilitarianism, for instance, accepts this claim: utilitarianism is a welfarist theory. Kantianism (at least as understood by Kant) is not.1 But welfarism isn’t just about morality. One can be a welfarist about many different normative domains: about morality, about political justice, about etiquette or aesthetics, and so on. Welfarist theories of different domains will obviously maintain different degrees of plausibility, and welfarism isn’t all or nothing: one needn’t be a welfarist about aesthetics, for instance, to be a welfarist about political justice. In this chapter, I focus on morality. I’m interested in doing two things here. First, I’d like to say a little more about what welfarism is (at least when it comes to welfarism about morality), and to spend some time assessing its prospects. Though I won’t be able to settle the ages-old dispute of whether we should accept welfarism, I hope (at least) to point to considerations that can be said to count in favor of this doctrine, and those objections to which welfarism (about morality) is, and is not, vulnerable.
