Welfare as Individual Flourishing

Garrett Cullity (Australian National University)

A prominent kind of Neo-Classical theory of welfare identifies it with flourishing as a human being. Such theories face a fundamental objection: the objection from forms of flourishing that are bad for their possessor. But they give rise to an important challenge: what could welfare possibly be, if it is not a way of being good? In response, we can separate two ideas that such theories combine. One is the idea of flourishing as successful activity sustained through the mutually supportive operation of an individual’s component parts. The other is the idea of fulfilling the capacities that are distinctive of the life-form to which the individual belongs. Non-humans can flourish in the first way only if they flourish in the second. But humans are different, since we can set our own goals. Your welfare is your flourishing, not as a human being, but as you.