Richard J. Arneson is an

American philosopher This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States. {, border="0" style="margin:auto;" class="toccolours" , - ! {{MediaWiki:Toc , - , style="text-ali ...

specializing in

political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

who has taught at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

since 1973. He chaired the department during 1992–1996 and served as graduate adviser. In 1996, he also served as visiting professor in the ethics, politics, and economics program at Yale University. Arneson earned his PhD in philosophy from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, in 1975. His work has largely focused on

utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...

and on

luck egalitarianism Luck egalitarianism is a view about distributive justice espoused by a variety of egalitarian and other political philosophers. According to this view, justice demands that variations in how well-off people are should be wholly determined by the r ...

. He is also a proponent of

prioritarianism Prioritarianism, or the priority view, is a view within ethics and political philosophy that "social welfare orderings should give explicit priority to the worse off". Prioritarianism resembles utilitarianism. Like utilitarianism, prioritarianism ...

. Arneson has also critiqued

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

, arguing that capitalism was exploitative for more complex reasons than the

labour theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian e ...

accounted for. He argued that surplus transfer was only wrong when it was the result of an unequal distribution of social goods. Therefore, under capitalism, the majority of exchanges are inherently exploitative because the benefits end up in the hands of those who do not need it. Nonetheless, he says, surplus transfer is legitimate when it arises independently or when it is used to compensate the unequal distribution of natural endowments and wealth. Arneson has also contributed to debates concerning obligations from involuntary benefits, arguing that in some instances the "voluntary acceptance" condition ought to be relaxed.

References

External links

Faculty page
Living people Moral philosophers Philosophers from California Philosophers from Connecticut University of California, San Diego faculty Yale University faculty UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni Political philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-philosopher-stub

See also

References

External links