Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being

Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being PDF Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521457224
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
Constituting the most advanced and comprehensive treatment of one of the cardinal issues in social theory, a diverse group of social scientists address the problems, principles and practices involved in comparing the well-being of different individuals.

Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being

Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being PDF Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521457224
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
Constituting the most advanced and comprehensive treatment of one of the cardinal issues in social theory, a diverse group of social scientists address the problems, principles and practices involved in comparing the well-being of different individuals.

Well-Being and Fair Distribution

Well-Being and Fair Distribution PDF Author: Matthew Adler
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195384997
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
A comprehensive philosophically grounded argument for the use of social welfare functions as a framework for governmental policy analysis.

Measuring Social Welfare

Measuring Social Welfare PDF Author: Matthew D. Adler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190643048
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Disputes over government policies rage in a number of areas. From taxation to climate change, from public finance to risk regulation, and from health care to infrastructure planning, advocates debate how policies affect multiple dimensions of individual well-being, how these effects balance against each other, and how trade-offs between overall well-being and inequality should be resolved. How to measure and balance well-being gains and losses is a vexed issue. Matthew D. Adler advances the debate by introducing the social welfare function (SWF) framework and demonstrating how it can be used as a powerful tool for evaluating governmental policies. The framework originates in welfare economics and in philosophical scholarship regarding individual well-being, ethics, and distributive justice. It has three core components: a well-being measure, which translates each of the possible policy outcomes into an array of interpersonally comparable well-being numbers, quantifying how well off each person in the population would be in that outcome; a rule for ranking outcomes thus described ; and an uncertainty module, which orders policies understood as probability distributions over outcomes. The SWF framework is a significant improvement compared to cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which quantifies policy impacts in dollars, is thereby biased towards the rich, and is insensitive to the distribution of these monetized impacts. The SWF framework, by contrast, uses an unbiased measure of well-being and allows the policymaker to consider both efficiency (total well-being) and equity (the distribution of well-being). Because the SWF framework is a fully generic methodology for policy assessment, Adler also discusses how it can be implemented to inform government policies. He illustrates it through a detailed case study of risk regulation, contrasting the implications of results of SWF and CBA. This book provides an accessible, yet rigorous overview of the SWF approach that can inform policy-makers and students.

Well-Being

Well-Being PDF Author: James Griffin
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191520063
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
The author offers answers to three central questions about well-being: the best way to understand it; whether it can be measured; and where it should fit in moral and political thought. This is a paperback reissue of the title published in hardback in 1986.

Summary Measures of Population Health

Summary Measures of Population Health PDF Author: World Health Organization
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9789241545518
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 816

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Book Description
As life expectancy rates continue to increase in many countries around the world, comparative health assessments based on mortality rates alone give an increasingly inadequate picture of public health. This publication addresses a wide range of key issues regarding the measurement of population health using comprehensive indices which combine data on mortality and ill-health. It considers the various uses of such summary measures, as well as an appropriate measurement framework and specific ethical and social value choices involved. The contributors to this book include leading experts in epidemiological methods, ethics, health economics, health status measurement and the valuation of health states.

Global Health Priority-Setting

Global Health Priority-Setting PDF Author: Ole Frithjof Norheim
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190912766
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Global health is at a crossroads. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has come with ambitious targets for health and health services worldwide. To reach these targets, many more billions of dollars need to be spent on health. However, development assistance for health has plateaued and domestic funding on health in most countries is growing at rates too low to close the financing gap. National and international decision-makers face tough choices about how scarce health care resources should be spent. Should additional funds be spent on primary prevention of stroke, treating childhood cancer, or expanding treatment for HIV/AIDS? Should health coverage decisions take into account the effects of illness on productivity, household finances, and children's educational attainment, or just focus on health outcomes? Does age matter for priority setting or should it be ignored? Are health gains far in the future less important than gains in the present? Should higher priority be given to people who are sicker or poorer? Global Health Priority-Setting provides a framework for how to think about evidence-based priority-setting in health. Over 18 chapters, ethicists, philosophers, economists, policy-makers, and clinicians from around the world assess the state of current practice in national and global priority setting, describe new tools and methodologies to address establishing global health priorities, and tackle the most important ethical questions that decision-makers must consider in allocating health resources.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Index

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Index PDF Author: Edward Craig
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415073103
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 900

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Book Description
Contains a full index of all the topics covered in the first nine volumes of the set.

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics PDF Author: Mark D. White
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019251282X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
Economics and ethics are both valuable tools for analyzing the behavior and actions of human beings and institutions. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, considered them two sides of the same coin, but since economics was formalized and mathematicised in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the fields have largely followed separate paths. The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics provides a timely and thorough survey of the various ways ethics can, does, and should inform economic theory and practice. The first part of the book, Foundations, explores how the most prominent schools of moral philosophy relate to economics; asks how morals relevant to economic behavior may have evolved; and explains how various approaches to economics incorporate ethics into their work. The second part, Applications, looks at the ethics of commerce, finance, and markets; uncovers the moral dilemmas involved with making decisions regarding social welfare, risk, and harm to others; and explores how ethics is relevant to major topics within economics, such as health care and the environment. With esteemed contributors from economics and philosophy, The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics is a resource for scholars in both disciplines and those in related fields. It highlights the close relationship between ethics and economics in the past while and lays a foundation for further integration going forward.

From Valuing to Value

From Valuing to Value PDF Author: David Sobel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191021261
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Subjective accounts of well-being and reasons for action have a remarkable pedigree. The idea that normativity flows from what an agent cares about-that something is valuable because it is valued-has appealed to a wide range of great thinkers. But at the same time this idea has seemed to many of the best minds in ethics to be outrageous or worse, not least because it seems to threaten the status of morality. Mutual incomprehension looms over the discussion. From Valuing to Value, written by an influential former critic of subjectivism, owns up to the problematic features to which critics have pointed while arguing that such criticisms can be blunted and the overall view rendered defensible. In this collection of his essays David Sobel does not shrink from acknowledging the real tension between subjective views of reasons and morality, yet argues that such a tension does not undermine subjectivism. In this volume the fundamental commitments of subjectivism are clarified and revealed to be rather plausible and well-motivated, while the most influential criticisms of subjectivism are straightforwardly addressed and found wanting.

Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy

Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy PDF Author: Daniel Hausman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316943259
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book shows through argument and numerous policy-related examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores the idea of rationality and its connections to ethics, arguing that when they defend their formal model of rationality, most economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II addresses the nature and measurement of welfare, utilitarianism and cost-benefit analysis. Part III discusses freedom, rights, equality, and justice - moral notions that are relevant to evaluating policies, but which have played little if any role in conventional welfare economics. Finally, Part IV explores work in social choice theory and game theory that is relevant to moral decision making. Each chapter includes recommended reading and discussion questions.