Agency, Patiency, and The Good Life: the Passivities Objection to Eudaimonism
Many contemporary eudaimonists emphasize the role of agency in the good life. Mark LeBar, for example, characterizes his own eudaimonist view this way: It is agentist, not patientist, because it emphasizes that our lives go well in virtue of what we do, rather than what happens, to us or otherwise...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2016]
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Jahr: 2016, Band: 19, Heft: 3, Seiten: 773-786 |
| IxTheo Notationen: | NBE Anthropologie VA Philosophie |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
Agency
B Eudaimonism B Well-being B Patiency B Wolterstorff |
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Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Zusammenfassung: | Many contemporary eudaimonists emphasize the role of agency in the good life. Mark LeBar, for example, characterizes his own eudaimonist view this way: It is agentist, not patientist, because it emphasizes that our lives go well in virtue of what we do, rather than what happens, to us or otherwise. Nicholas Wolterstorff, however, has argued that this prioritizing of agency over patiency is a fatal flaw in eudaimonist accounts of well-being. Eudaimonism must be rejected, Wolterstorff argues, because many life-goods are passivities that are out of a persons hands, including how she is treated by others. In this paper, I defend eudaimonism against this passivities objection. I argue that eudaimonism can maintain its agentist character while also capturing the element of truth in the passivities objectionnamely, that human well-being is vulnerable and social. I also argue that eudaimonists should avail themselves of the notion of receptivity to capture important aspects of the good life. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-016-9683-z |