Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Utility: Happiness in Philosophical and Economic Thought

by Anthony Kenny (Editor), Charles Kenny (Editor)

Overview

A volume on the nature, ingredients, causes and consequences of human happiness by the father and son team of Anthony and Charles Kenny. The book is an updating of Johnson's famous lines: 'How small of all that human hearts endure That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned Our own felicity we make or find.'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845400521
Publisher:	Imprint Academic (Ips)
Publication date:	10/01/2006
Series:	St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs , #7
Pages:	275
Sales rank:	898,919
Product dimensions:	5.34(w) x 8.34(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Sir Anthony Kenny was formerly Master of Balliol College, Oxford, and is currently president of the British Academy. His many books include Medieval Philosophy, A Brief History of Western Philosophy, The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy and Wittgenstein

Sir Anthony Kenny is one of Britain's most distinguished academic figures. He has been Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Master of Balliol College, Chairman of the Board of the British Library, and President of the British Academy. He has published more than forty books on philosophy and history.

Editorial Reviews

"This is very much a worthwhile book. It usefully synthesizes literatures and arguments from philosophy and economics, and shows how they bear on moral and political deliberations about happiness."

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"A unique and valuable book on the meaning of happiness that, while interdisciplinary, preserves the strengths of the distinct disciplinary approaches it includes... The Kennys have done an admirable job of writing a plausible, well-argued, and accessible volume that should be of benefit to both academic and non-academic audiences."

Philosophy and Culture Journal of Law

"While clearly written, it is pretty advanced in the technicality of its arguments. I would recommend it for a third-year course on ethics or practical theology... [L]eaves one with much to think about."

Church Times - Revd Dr Sedgwick

"It is a great intellectual pleasure... witty, profound but well understandable, the reader feels the moral and political commitment of the authors."

Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 41, no. 3 - Helge Peukert

"We now have a new study of an altogether superior kind by a father and son team of philosopher and economist... To make progress the authors break up happiness into three components: welfare, contentment and dignity... The most striking of the Kenny findings is how little welfare has to do with income either absolute or relative."

Financial Times - Samuel Brittan