Abstract

The concept of welfare and the nature of the welfare state are central themes of the normative political debate. But the word ‘welfare’ identifies a particularly contested part of the conceptual landscape that has been much trampled by economists, philosophers and political theorists, as well as a wide variety of more practical politicians, policy analysts and social commentators. Each group might be conceived as engaged on the production of a map which charts the salient features of ‘welfare’ and places them in relation to other features of the terrain: ‘rights’, ‘needs’ ‘equality’, ‘justice’, ‘government policy’ and so on. Many maps have been produced but an inspection of these various maps might not convince the observer that all relate to the same landscape. Some of the apparent differences are no more than differences of emphasis or perspective, and might be thought of as differences in cartographic convention. Some result from simple confusions, but others are more foundational and reflect importantly different views of the world.