scholarly journals Harm as Negative Prudential Value: A Non-Comparative Account of Harm

SATS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Tanya de Villiers-Botha
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Prudential Value

AbstractIn recent attempts to define “harm,” comparative accounts of harm, specifically counterfactual comparative accounts, have been touted as the most promising approaches to defining the concept. Nevertheless, such accounts face serious difficulties. This has led to the call for the concept to simply be dropped from the moral lexicon altogether. I reject this call, arguing that non-comparative approaches to defining harm have not been sufficiently explored. I develop such an account and claim that it avoids the difficulties faced by comparative accounts while not presupposing a substantive theory of well-being, which is taken as a key failing of non-comparative accounts. I conclude that this definition renders a concept of harm that can be meaningfully employed in our moral discourse.

scholarly journals Harm as Negative Prudential Value: A Non-Comparative Account of Harm

SATS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya de Villiers-Botha
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Prudential Value

AbstractIn recent attempts to define “harm,” comparative accounts of harm, specifically counterfactual comparative accounts, have been touted as the most promising approaches to defining the concept. Nevertheless, such accounts face serious difficulties. This has led to the call for the concept to simply be dropped from the moral lexicon altogether. I reject this call, arguing that non-comparative approaches to defining harm have not been sufficiently explored. I develop such an account and claim that it avoids the difficulties faced by comparative accounts while not presupposing a substantive theory of well-being, which is taken as a key failing of non-comparative accounts. I conclude that this definition renders a concept of harm that can be meaningfully employed in our moral discourse.

Human Flourishing Versus Desire Satisfaction

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Arneson
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Desire Satisfaction ◽  
Individual Good ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
Good For

What is the good for human persons? If I am trying to lead the best possible life I could lead, not the morally best life, but the life that is best for me, what exactly am I seeking?This phrasing of the question I will be pursuing may sound tendentious, so some explanation is needed. What is good for one person, we ordinarily suppose, can conflict with what is good for other persons and with what is required by morality. A prudent person seeks her own good efficiently; she selects the best available means to her good. If we call the value that a person seeks when she is being prudent “prudential value,” then an alternative rendering of the question to be addressed in this essay is “What is prudential value?” We can also say that an individual flourishes or has a life high in well-being when her life is high in prudential value. Of course, these common-sense appearances that the good for an individual, the good for other persons, and the requirements of morality often are in conflict might be deceiving. For all that I have said here, the correct theory of individual good might yield the result that sacrificing oneself for the sake of other people or for the sake of a morally worthy cause can never occur, because helping others and being moral always maximize one's own good. But this would be the surprising result of a theory, not something we should presuppose at the start of inquiry. When a friend has a baby and I express a conventional wish that the child have a good life, I mean a life that is good for the child, not a life that merely helps others or merely respects the constraints of morality. After all, a life that is altruistic and perfectly moral, we suppose, could be a life that is pure hell for the person who lives it—a succession of horrible headaches marked by no achievements or attainments of anything worthwhile and ending in agonizing death at a young age. So the question remains, what constitutes a life that is good for the person who is living it?

An Analysis of Prudential Value

Utilitas ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN M. CAMPBELL
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Good For ◽  
The Relationship

This essay introduces and defends a new analysis of prudential value. According to this analysis, what it is for something to be good for you is for that thing to contribute to the appeal or desirability of being in your position. I argue that this proposal fits well with our ways of talking about prudential value and well-being; enables promising analyses of luck, selfishness, self-sacrifice and paternalism; preserves the relationship between prudential value and the attitudes of concern, love, pity and envy; and satisfies various other desiderata. I also highlight two ways in which the analysis is informative and can lead to progress in our substantive theorizing about the good life.

Parenting Stress and Maternal Coherence: Mothers With Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Children

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-271
Author(s):  
Yap Quin Jean ◽  
Rafidah Mazlan ◽  
Mahadir Ahmad ◽  
Nashrah Maamor
Keyword(s):  
Parenting Stress ◽  
Hard Of Hearing ◽  
Parental Stress ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Adjustment Process ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
Grounded Theory Approach

Purpose The aim of this study was to develop a substantive theory that explains parenting stress among mothers of deaf or hard-of-hearing (D/HH) children. Method Fifteen hearing mothers of children with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss were interviewed. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and a grounded theory approach was used to inductively analyze parental stress in mothers of D/HH children. Theory generation was achieved through triangulation of data sources and systematic organization of data into codes. The coding process identified salient themes that were constantly cross-checked and compared across data to further develop categories, properties, and tentative hypotheses. Results In general, two main themes emerged from the interviews: the contextual stressors and stress-reducing resources. The contextual stressors were labeled as distress over audiology-related needs, pressure to acquire new knowledge and skills, apprehension about the child's future, and demoralizing negative social attitudes. The stress-reducing resources that moderated parenting stress were identified to be the child's progress, mother's characteristics, professional support, and social support. The interaction between the identified stressors and adjustment process uncovered a central theme termed maternal coherence. Conclusion The substantive theory suggests that mothers of D/HH children can effectively manage parenting stress and increase well-being by capitalizing on relevant stress-reducing resources to achieve maternal coherence.

scholarly journals Against Contextualism about Prudential Discourse

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (277) ◽  
pp. 699-720
Author(s):  
Guy Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Prudential Value

Abstract In recent times, there has been a surge of interest in, and enthusiasm for, contextualist views about prudential discourse—thought and talk about what has prudential value or contributes to someone's well-being. In this paper, I examine and reject two cases for radical forms of prudential contextualism, proposed by Anna Alexandrova and Steve Campbell. Alexandrova holds that the semantic content of terms like ‘well-being’ and ‘doing well’ varies across contexts. Campbell proposes that there are plural prudential concepts at play in prudential discourse (and in philosophical reflection upon such discourse) and that we find evidence of this in the conflicting commitments of prudential discourse. The negative aim of the paper is to show that Alexandrova and Campbell have not given us a good case for ambitious forms of contextualism about prudential discourse. The positive aim of the paper is to provide alternative, aspectualist, explanations of the features of prudential discourse that their discussions highlight.

scholarly journals La valeur de la connaissance des émotions

Labyrinth ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Bertille De Vlieger
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Emotional Knowledge

The Value of the Emotional Knowledge Emotional knowledge is a form of self-knowledge which holds great interest for ordinary individuals. It is not obtained by any obligation but rather because we think it is crucial to obtain (Cassam 2017). In this article it is a matter of demonstrating that emotional knowledge holds an instrumental and a prudential value. By arguing that it can allow a control over our emotions, I shall maintain that emotional knowledge affects individual marginalization or acceptance in society. In addition, this type of knowledge is revealing of our personality by allowing us to identify our affective identities. Finally, I shall defend the idea that emotional knowledge contributes to the conduct of a good life. As such, my hypothesis could be viewed as incompatible with widespread ideas (Montaigne 2019), according to which the knowledge of our own emotions can trigger negative emotional states, e.g. mental rumination, anxiety, that do not contribute to our well-being.  

Well-Being and Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Being And Time ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Over Time

A full defense is presented of the thesis that there are two orders of value, one incommensurably superior to the other. To see this, we must realize that the goods that comprise well-being do not diminish in value over time. Plato was therefore right to hold that we should want to possess the good eternally. Lives typically contain a combination of good and bad; a whole life should be counted good on balance by aggregating—adding the good and subtracting the bad. No period of life inherently has less prudential value than any other. Narrative factors should figure in our assessment of how well a life goes only when they affect our experience. There is some truth in Goethe’s line: “Only the present is our happiness” (Faust, Part Two). Aristotle’s notion that well-being needs a “complete” life contains both insights and errors.

Prudential Normativity, Moral Scepticisms, and Metaethics

Dear Prudence ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 145-166
Author(s):  
Guy Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Error Theory ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Prudential Value ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Moral Judgements ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Moral Debate ◽  
Companions In Guilt ◽  
Moral Scepticism

In earlier chapters it was argued that prudential value gives agents normative, prudential reasons and that prudential judgements are normative judgements on a par with moral judgements. This chapter spells out some ramifications of these theses by examining four different areas of inquiry about morality and moral discourse, showing how the theses hitherto defended in this book affect them. It begins with the form of moral scepticism found within the ‘why be moral?’ debate. It then examines hermeneutic moral error theory and proposes a companions-in-guilt argument based on the normativity of prudential discourse. Third, it examines arguments given within the literature on revisionary metaethical views, pointing out and questioning their commitment to prudential justifications. Finally, it is shown how the normativity of prudential properties applies to a central debate about thick concepts, that between reductionists and non-reductionists about such concepts.

What Is a Theory of Prudential Intrinsic Value?

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-76
Author(s):  
Dale Dorsey
Keyword(s):  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Prudential Value

There is little agreement among theorists concerning what we would like a theory of intrinsic prudential value to do. This chapter holds that such a theory is not meant to provide an account of a person’s well-being, life quality, or any other such notion, except derivatively. Instead, theories of intrinsic prudential value should provide (or offer a procedure to provide) a prudential ordering: those particular states, objects, or events that are intrinsic goods for a person, ordered by their comparative value.

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