Well-Being, Agency and Freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984

TLDR

Well‑being and agency are each relevant to assessing states and actions. The lectures aim to explore a moral approach that views persons from both well‑being and agency perspectives and to examine metaethical issues using an informational analysis of moral valuation. Informational analysis can be used to reveal the content, scope, and limitations of moral principles, illustrated by examples of how informational constraints are specified through invariance requirements. Authorship invariance is a reasonable requirement of moral evaluation, and its combination with position relativity shows that positional moral valuation can be consistent with objective moral values.

Abstract

The main aim of Dewey lectures is to explore a moral approach that sees persons from two different perspectives: and agency. Both the well-being aspect and the agency aspect of persons have their own relevance in the assessment of states and actions. A second objective is to examine a set of metaethical issues, making use of an approach to moral analysis which focuses on the admissibility and use of different types of information in moral valuation. Informational analysis can be used to bring out the content, scope, and limitations of different moral principles. A few examples may help to illustrate the diversity of ways in which informational constraints may be used through the specification of invariance requirements. Authorship invariance does have some claims to being a reasonable requirement of moral evaluation. The possibility of combining position relativity with authorship invariance is also the reason why positionality of moral valuation is perfectly consistent with objectivity of moral values.