The Value of Lives, Misc

David Benatar argues that being brought into existence is always a net harm and never a benefit. I disagree. I argue that if you bring someone into existence who lives a life worth living, then you have not all things considered wronged her. Lives are worth living if they are high in various objective goods and low in objective bads. These lives constitute a net benefit. In contrast, lives worth avoiding constitute a net harm. Lives worth avoiding are net high (...) in objective bads and low in objective goods. It is the prospect of a LWA that gives us good reason to not bring someone into existence. Happily, many lives are not worth avoiding. Contra Benatar, many are indeed worth living. Even if we grant Benatar his controversial asymmetry thesis, we have no reason to think that coming into existence is always a net harm. (shrink)

Reprinted in James The Will to Believe and Other Essays.

Work done within the realm of what is sometimes called ‘descriptive ethics’ brings two questions readily to mind: How can empirical findings, in general, inform normative debates? and How can these empirical findings, in particular, inform the normative debate at hand? Brick et al 1 confront these questions in their novel investigation of public views about lives worth living and the permissibility of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from critically ill infants. Mindful of the is-ought gap, the authors suggest modestly that their (...) data ‘may be useful when constructing guidelines for clinical practice’. In this commentary, I consider some potential limitations on the generalisability of these data in the context of policy and clinical practice, limitations which may in turn serve as directions for future empirical research. The authors’ study presented participants six case scenarios, five of which involved the possibility of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from critically ill infants. The results revealed that “[a]lmost all respondents agreed that at some level of quality of life, life may be of no benefit or worse than death for an infant” and that “participants significantly favoured withdrawal of treatment for the most severe cases.” One salient detail in these scenarios …. (shrink)

This article proposes a novel strategy, one that draws on insights from antidiscrimination law, for addressing a persistent challenge in medical ethics and the philosophy of disability: whether health systems can consider quality of life without unjustly discriminating against individuals with disabilities. It argues that rather than uniformly considering or ignoring quality of life, health systems should take a more nuanced approach. Under the article's proposal, health systems should treat cases where quality of life suffers because of disability-focused exclusion or (...) injustice differently from cases where lower quality of life results from laws of nature, resource scarcity, or appropriate tradeoffs. Decisionmakers should ignore quality-of-life losses that result from injustice or exclusion when ignoring them would improve the prospects of individuals with disabilities; in contrast, they should consider quality-of-life losses that are unavoidable or stem from resource scarcity or permissible tradeoffs. On this proposal, while health systems should not amplify existing injustice against individuals with disabilities, they are not required to altogether ignore the potential effects of disability on quality of life. (shrink)

Contemporary versions of natural rights libertarianism trace their locus classicus to Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But although there have been many criticisms of the version of political libertarianism put forward by Nozick, many of these fail objections to meet basic methodological desiderata. Thus, Nozick’s libertarianism deserves to be re-examined. In this paper I develop a new argument which meets these desiderata. Specifically, I argue that the libertarian conception of self-ownership, the view’s foundation, implies what I call the Asymmetrical (...) Value Claim: a dubious claim about the importance of choice relative to other valuable capacities. I argue that this misunderstands what is really valuable in life, and show how it causes libertarianism to generate counterintuitive public policy recommendations. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and focus on (...) the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

In this study the author has focused on the impact of activeness and independence on the quality of life of seniors. Activeness is taken to mean the participation in regular everyday tasks. Functional independence is independence in everyday life. Quality of life in old age describes the level of satisfaction with life and indicators of successful ageing. The survey was conducted in October 2013 among four groups of seniors. Two variables determined the distribution of respondents: the level of activeness and (...) the functional independence of the seniors. The study involved 99 seniors from Sopot and Gdansk. Functional independence has a much greater impact on the quality of life of seniors than activeness in as much as independence is influenced by our state of health over which we may always have full control, whereas activeness to a large extent depends on ourselves. (shrink)

A lot of medical procedures can be justified in terms of the number of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) they can be expected to generate; that is, the number of extra years that the procedure will provide, with the quality of life during those extra years factored in. QALYs are a crude tool, but good enough for many decisions. Notoriously, however, they cannot justify spending any money on terminal care (and indeed on older people in general). In this paper I suggest a (...) different way of construing ‘quality’ (as meaningfulness rather than physical comfort) and ‘life’ (as both backward-looking and forward-looking), so that the terminal patient's efforts to find meaning in his life could in principle generate plenty of ‘retrospective QALYs’ to justify funding. (shrink)

This paper examines a model of income and quality of life that controls the love of money, job satisfaction, gender, and marital status and treats employment status (full-time versus part-time), income level, and gender as moderators. For the whole sample, income was not significantly related to quality of life when this path was examined alone. When all variables were controlled, income was negatively related to quality of life. When (1) the love of money was negatively correlated to job satisfaction and (...) (2) job satisfaction was positively related to both income and quality of life, income was negatively related to quality of life for full-time, high-income, and male employees. When these two conditions failed to exist, income was not related to quality of life for part-time, median- or low-income, and female employees. This model provides new insights regarding the impact of the love of money and job satisfaction on the income–quality of life relationship. (shrink)

The term "quality of life" has a long history in the bioethics literature. It is usually used in one of two contexts: in resource allocation discussions in the hope of arriving at an objective measure of the worth of an intervention; and in end-of-life discussions as a concept that can justify the forgoing of life-sustaining treatment. In both contexts, the term has valid uses as it is meant to measure the efficacy of a treatment. However, the term has the unfortunate (...) rhetorical problem that it often seems to be a judgment on the life of a human being. As such, it is highly inflammatory. We suggest that a return to a rhetoric that suggests a judgment on the treatment rather than the person is needed. (shrink)

A remarkable surge in efforts to assess the quality of life of patients has occurred in recent years in medical research. Philosophical discussions of these developments have focused, on the one hand, on epistemological reservations about the plausibility of measuring quality of life and, on the other hand, on moral and ethical qualms about the meaning of life conveyed in such assessments. Whilst providing an important note of caution, such critiques fail to recognise two basic principles of quality of life (...) in medical research. Firstly it is intended to provide understanding about groups and categories of patients rather than individuals. Secondly the purpose of such research is to produce generalisations about the relative costs and benefits of specific health care interventions rather than absolute judgements regarding the quality of life of patients per se. Selecting a good quality of life measure for a clinical trial requires balancing criteria such as validity with practical feasibility. Such measures will play an increasingly central role in providing research evidence to improve health care. (shrink)

According to the "sanctity-of-life" view, all human lives are equally valuable and inviolable, and it would be wrong to base life-and-death medical decisions on the quality of the patient's life. Examining the ideas and assumptions behind the sanctity-of-life view, Kuhse argues against the traditional view that allowing someone to die is morally different from killing, and shows that quality-of-life judgments are ubiquitous. Refuting the sanctity-of-life view, she provides a sketch of a quality-of-life ethics based on the belief that there is (...) a profound difference between merely being alive and life being in the patient's interest. (shrink)

A number of factors must be considered in facility location decisions. Recent research on job design suggests that the effects jobs may have on quality of work life and quality of life in general should be considered in facility location decisions in addition to other normal factors. The present study was designed to examine quality of work life and quality of life factors of residents in a low income and low education area. The intent was to determine what types of (...) jobs might have the most positive effect on people in this type of region. Data were collected from 409 households in a low income/education region. The results showed that people from this region were as satisfied with their quality of work life and quality of life as people in other regions with better jobs, higher incomes, and better general life situations. Results are discussed in light of facility location decisions and types of jobs having the most positive impact. (shrink)

The most valuable player (MVP) of an athletic league is the single best individual player in the league. The MVP award is the institutional recognition of this person, and it is the highest annual award that a player can receive. Despite its widespread consideration and importance, we argue that the concept of the MVP is a fundamentally vague concept. In the context of professional sports, however, such a vague category is valuable in that it promotes the active discussion of different (...) types of excellence found within a specific sport and the weight to be assigned these types, thus leading to a gain for the discussants. (shrink)

Richard Kraut presents a new theory of human well-being. Kraut's principal idea, Aristotelian in spirit, is that 'external goods' have at most an indirect bearing on the quality of our lives. A good internal life - one with quality emotional, intellectual, social, and perceptual experiences - is what well-being consists in.

Euthanasia advocates argue that end-of-life decisions should be based on patients’ autonomous evaluations of their own quality of life. The question is whether a patient’s quality of life has deteriorated so far as to make death a benefit. Criteria for evaluating quality of life are, however, unavoidably arbitrary and unjust. The concept is difficult to define, and human autonomy has limits. This essay discusses the moral issues raised by quality-of-life judgments at the end of life: who makes them, what criteria (...) they use, and what clinical actions the conclusions justify. It then looks at ways in which quality of life can be considered legitimately, in relation not to euthanasia, which is always illicit, but to specific proposed treatments. If a patient decides to forgo treatment, the decision should be based on the judgment that the treatment, its side effects, or its long-term consequences would be excessively burdensome or useless. (shrink)

The study verified self-esteem, extraversion, neuroticism and health as predictors of subjectively-assessed quality of life. The sample included 109 adolescents. The research tools used were WHOQOL-BREF, Rosenberg´s self-esteem scale and NEO-FFI personality questionnaire. The results were processed using the multiple linear regression analysis stepwise method. Health was not found to be a predictor of subjectively-assessed quality of life in the research sample. Self-esteem was found to be a predictor of psychological and environmental quality of life. Neuroticism was confirmed as a (...) predictor only for physical quality of life. Extraversion was established as a universal predictor for all the aspects of quality of life measured: physical, psychological and environmental. (shrink)

The outcome of very preterm infants is marked by the development of complications that can have an impact on the quality of life of the children and their families. The concept of quality of life and its evaluation in the long term raise semantic and ethical problems for French physicians in perinatal care. Our reflection aims to gain a better understanding of the representations surrounding quality of life in neonatal medicine.

This study examines the process by which the concept of quality of life has been increasing in importance as the key to ASEAN's socio-cultural integration. This study also focuses on the current trend that emphasizes subjective quality of life and clarifies that ASEAN has been moving toward including this perspective. Then, it analyzes the subjective quality of life of people in ASEAN in terms of self-assessment and the multidimensional World Health Organization Quality of Life metric by using data from the (...) ASEAN Barometer 2009. (shrink)

Recent work in the psychology of happiness has led some to conclude that we are unreliable assessors of our lives and that skepticism about whether we are happy is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. I argue that such claims, if true, have worrisome implications for procreation. In particular, they show that skepticism about whether many if not most people are well positioned to create persons is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. This skeptical worry should not be (...) confused with a related but much stronger version of the argument, which says that all human lives are very bad and not worth starting. I criticize the latter stance, but take seriously the former stance and hope it can be answered in future work. (shrink)

Quality improvement mechanisms increasingly use outcome measures to evaluate health care providers. This move toward outcome measures is a radical departure from the traditional focus on process measures. More radical still is the proposal to shift from relatively simple and proximal measures of outcome, such as mortality, to complex outcomes, such as quality of life. While the practical, scientific, and ethical issues associated with the use of outcomes such as mortality and morbidity to compare health care providers have been well (...) rehearsed, the specific concerns associated with the use of quality of life measures in quality of care research have received little attention. As with much research on quality of life there is a tendency to assume that the disadvantages are outweighed by the general virtue of “listening” to patients. In this paper we disagree with this assumption and argue that quality of life is a process, not an outcome. (shrink)

When is it permissible to allow a newborn infant to die on the basis of their future quality of life? The prevailing official view is that treatment may be withdrawn only if the burdens in an infant's future life outweigh the benefits. In this paper I outline and defend an alternative view. On the Threshold View, treatment may be withdrawn from infants if their future well-being is below a threshold that is close to, but above the zero-point of well-being. I (...) present four arguments in favor of the Threshold View, and identify and respond to several counterarguments. I conclude that it is justifiable in some circumstances for parents and doctors to decide to allow an infant to die even though the infant's life would be worth living. The Threshold View provides a justification for treatment decisions that is more consistent, more robust, and potentially more practical than the standard view. (shrink)

Genetic engineering often generates fear of out of control scientists creating Frankenstein creatures that will terrorize the general populace, especially in the cases of human-animal chimeras. While sometimes an accurate characterization of some researchers, this belief is often the result of repugnance for new technology rather than being rationally justified. To facilitate thoughtful discussion the moral issues raised by human-animal chimeras, ethicists and other stakeholders must develop a rational ethical framework before raw emotion has a chance of becoming the dominating (...) justification for public opinion and policy. Derek Parfit’s work on lives worth living for human beings can provide valuable insight into the morality of creating chimeras. As long as their lives are overall good, then bringing them into existence does not harm them even if they are used for medical research or procedures, or they are created to carry on the homo sapiens’ “family” line. (shrink)

Therapeutic and technologic innovations in neonatal medicine have made it possible to save many critically ill newborns who would have died in the past. Unfortunately, some newborns saved survive only briefly despite aggressive attempts to keep them alive, while others survive long-term only to live in tragically impaired states. Given this reality, the question no longer is "Can we save this newborn's life?" but "What kind of life are we saving?" This shift in the question manifestly indicates that quality of (...) life has become increasingly important in neonatal decision making. ;Notwithstanding its importance, quality of life poses many problems, most notably, it is subject to vast interpretation and immoral application. One reason for this is that there is not one fully developed quality of life position, but many that differ in significant ways. Yet despite the differences, each quality of life position more or less fits into one of three broad approaches, namely: the social quality of life approach centered explicitly on the newborn and familial-societal factors; the individual quality of life approach centered explicitly on the newborn and only implicitly on familial-societal factors; and the relational quality of life approach centered on the relation between the newborn's medical condition and the newborn's ability to pursue life's goals as these are generally understood. ;This dissertation reviews representative positions within the three broad quality of life approaches and evaluates the approaches from a moral perspective with the express purpose of determining how quality of life should be defined and applied morally in the neonatal context. The central thesis of this dissertation is that the relational quality of life approach is the most morally plausible in terms of its definition of "quality" of life, viewpoints about the evaluative status of physical life, and considerations about the normative dimensions of quality of life. (shrink)

The purpose of my dissertation is to examine under what conditions life sustaining medical treatment is in an infant's best interest. Specifically, if an infant is expected to be conscious and capable of experiencing pleasure, and her prognosis does not include great suffering, are there any further conditions that must be met for survival to be good for her? I call accounts that assert that there are further conditions "Having a Life" accounts. These accounts propose non-hedonic requirements which must be (...) met for a life to be worth continuing. Are any such requirements defensible? ;I survey and critique Having a Life accounts offered in the bioethics literature. None of them provide cogent reasons why continuing to live is not good for one who fails to meet the proposed requirements. I examine two promising non-hedonic requirements, meaningfulness and dignity, in more detail. I also examine the claim that, because one is a human , having and developing certain characteristics is in one's best interest. Although we may have reason to believe that leading a meaningful life is good for one and that indignity is bad for one, there appears to be no good reason to conclude that meaningfulness and dignity are necessary for a life to be worth living . Similarly, even if there are characteristics which humans benefit from having and developing, this does not show that those who lack these characteristics derive no benefits from continuing to live. ;I conclude that the case for non-hedonic requirements is poor. The case is better for non-hedonic values: goods that make one's life better. Thus, although we cannot defend the claim that a life must contain certain goods in order to be worth living, possessing certain goods is evidence that a life is worth living. Lives that lack non-hedonic values may or may not be worth continuing. Whether they are depends on whether the sensory pleasures they contain outweigh the pain and discomfort. Epistemically, this is difficult to assess. (shrink)

In the last two decades, the term “quality-of-life” has become popular in medicine and health care. There are, however, important differences in the meaning and the use of the term. The message of all quality-of-life talk is that medicine and health care are not valuable in themselves. They are valuable to the extent that they contribute to the quality of life of patients. The ultimate aims of medicine and health care are not health or prolongation of life as such, but (...) preservation or improvement of the quality of life. The primary aims of medicine and health care, such as the prolongation of life, can – but need not always – come into conflict with the ultimate ones: medical treatments do not always benefit a patient. In this article I will, first, summarize the results of my explorations of the use and the meaning of the term “quality-of-life.” The use and the meaning of the term turn out to depend on the contexts of medical decisionmaking in which it is used. I will show that there are at least three different concepts of quality-of-life. Second, I will argue that the different concepts of quality-of-life are not unrelated. They point to different components of and/or conditions for happiness. Third, I will analyze the relation between the three concepts of qualityof-life, health and happiness. (shrink)

Orthodox Christian ethics is grounded in the sacredness of life principle. Yet, it can accept a quality of life approach where “quality” refers not to capacities or states, but to the relationship between the patient's condition and the quest for transcendent life goals (Walter and Shannon, 1990). The true quality of human life derives from the vocation to stewardship, which enjoins an attitude of humble acceptance toward beneficial or “redemptive” suffering. The proper response to suffering in terminal cases is not (...) active euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide but appropriate pain management and personal care. In cases of PVS or deep coma, only the determination of higher brain death can warrant the withholding or withdrawing of food and hydration. Yet, artificial maintenance of biological existence is also immoral. Death is to be accepted and embraced as a transition to eternal life. (shrink)

Quality of life is a difficult concept to define and to measure. An hypothesis is proposed which suggests that the quality of life measures the difference, or the gap, at a particular period of time between the hopes and expectations of the individual and that individual's present experiences. Quality of life can only be described by the individual, and must take into account many aspects of life. The approach is goal-orientated, and one of task analysis. The hypothesis is developed in (...) a diagramatic way, and several methods of testing the hypothesis suggested. (shrink)

With the ageing of the Portuguese population, there are more people in dependency situations and needing long-term care (LTC). In this context, it is important to ensure the quality of life (QoL) of those individuals, and that quality can be measured through their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and overall well-being. Also, understanding how perceived service quality (PSQ) can be related to how people perceive their QoL is pertinent since service quality is an important factor to achieve patient health outcomes. (...) To develop this project, a LTC unit located in the district of Lisbon was chosen, the LTC unit of Arruda dos Vinhos. The main objective was to assess the relation between the PSQ, the HRQoL and the overall well-being of patients receiving LTC at the LTC unit of Arruda dos Vinhos. A project based on a case study was performed, through interviews based on the items of the SERVPERF, EQ-5D and ICECAP-O questionnaires, which were then analysed through content analysis. Results showed there is a relation between PSQ and HRQoL and between HRQoL and overall well-being. It was also possible to realise that to better evaluate the quality of this specific service, other subjects as the activities performed at the LTC unit, the physiotherapy service and the food provided, should be taken in consideration. Concluding, there is a relation between PSQ and the QoL of the patients receiving LTC at the LTC unit of Arruda dos Vinhos, when quality of life is measured through HRQoL. (shrink)

Dying is (sometimes) bad for the dier because it prevents her from being the subject of wellbeing she otherwise would (the deprivation account). I argue for this from a (plausible) principle about which futures are bad for a prudential subject (the future-comparison principle). A strengthening of this principle yields that death is not always bad, and that the badness of death does not consist in that it destroys the dier.

Many find it reasonable to take our past actions into account when making choices for the future. In this paper, I address two important issues regarding taking past investments into account in prudential deliberation. The first is the charge that doing so commits the fallacy of honoring sunk costs. I argue that while it is indeed irrational to care about sunk costs, past investments are not sunk costs when we can change their teleological significance, roughly their contribution to our excellence (...) as temporally extended, reasons-responsive, and goal-directed agents. I suggest some general principles for evaluating such significance. Second, it’s a live issue whether we should care about the fate of our past projects, even if we can now affect it. I reject Dale Dorsey’s recent answer, and argue that the puzzle he addresses turns out to be merely apparent, if we take seriously the fact that we are temporally extended. (shrink)

When we ask ourselves about the meaning of life, two analyses are possible in principle: 1. that we are asking something about the purpose or the reason of being of life or of a life, or 2. that we are asking something the value of life or of a life. At the present article, I do not approach 1 neither the life as a whole, but I take the individual lives in the context of 2. I briefly explain what would (...) be to someone to have an objectivist conception of the meaning of life and what would be to someone to have a subjectivist one; and, then, I try to show how we can think in formulas that can capture the intuitions of those conceptions, without acquiring commitment with none of them. My way is to show that both objectivist and subjectivist conceptions think the meaning of life as related to projects or realizations that fulfill principles of value (the value can be objective or subjective according to the adopted conception), and ten I try to indicate that the projects or realizations from a person’s life come together through a simple sum to make the meaning of life of such a person’s life. The way I suggested for us to find the value of one of those realizations does not seem to present none theoretical problem. But the simple sum of realizations (and/or projects) to represent the value of the meaning of a person’s life simply did not work. That’s because it seems to lack some kind of index that is able to formalize the relations between realizations. Thus, although we couldn’t properly formalize the relation between the realizations that achieve the meaning of someone’s life at a certain moment, we get a good intuitive formalization of the value of a realization and we hope to have started an interesting investigation for future logicians, metaphysicians, mathematicians and theorists of value. (shrink)

This is a book review of Cheshire Calhoun's 2018 book, Doing Valuable Time.

There is a series of candidates for the ground of intrinsic value. Different theories posit that the ground consists of some or all of the following: types of experiences, desire-satisfaction, virtue, meaningful relationships, true beliefs, desert-satisfaction, etc. The ground can be local or global depending on whether it grounds value of a spatial, temporal, or fact-specific part of the universe (e.g., Jones enjoying this ice cream) or all facts considered (e.g., the universe over time). In this paper, I argue that (...) the single ground of global intrinsic value is the total amount of desert-adjusted well-being. I begin by providing a sketch of moral desert. I then argue that desert-adjusted well-being alone satisfies our intuitions about global intrinsic value. (shrink)

In his book, The Human Predicament, David Benatar claims that our individual lives and human life, in general, do not make a difference beyond Earth and, therefore, are meaningless from the vast, cosmic perspective. In this paper, I will explain how what we do matters from the cosmic perspective. I will provide examples of how human beings have transcended our limits, thereby giving human life some meaning from the cosmic perspective. Also, I will argue that human life could become even (...) more meaningful by making some fundamental achievements, such as determining how life originated. (shrink)

This is a review essay of Jeff McMahan's recent book The Ethics of Killing : Problems at the Margins of Life. In the first part, I lay out the central features of McMahan's account of the wrongness of killing and its implications for when it is permissible to kill. In the second part of the essay, I argue that we ought not to accept McMahan's rejection of species membership as having any bearing on whether it is permissible to kill a (...) particular individual, as there are ways of understanding its relevance that are more plausible than McMahan allows. (shrink)

Fifteen years ago, Robert Fulghum published a simple credo–a credo that became the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten . Now, seven million copies later, Fulghum returns to the book that was embraced around the world. He has written a new preface and twenty-five essays, which add even more potency to a common, though no less relevant, piece of wisdom: that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important (...) opportunities. Here Fulghum engages us with musings on life, death, love, pain, joy, sorrow, and the best chicken-fried steak in the continental U.S.A. The little seed in the Styrofoam cup offers a reminder about our own mortality and the delicate nature of life . . . a spider who catches (and loses) a full-grown woman in its web one fine morning teaches us about surviving catastrophe . . . the love story of Jean-Francois Pilatre and his hot air balloon reminds us to be brave and unafraid to “fly” . . . life lessons hidden in the laundry pile . . . magical qualities found in a box of crayons . . . hide-and-seek vs. sardines–and how these games relate to the nature of God. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is brimming with the very stuff of life and the significance found in the smallest details. In the years that have passed since the first publication of this book that touched so many with its simple, profound wisdom, Robert Fulghum has had some time to ponder, to reevaluate, and to reconsider. And here are those fresh thoughts on classic topics, right alongside the wonderful new essays. Perhaps in today’s chaotic, more challenging world, these essays on life will resonate even deeper–as readers discover how universal insights can be found in ordinary events. (shrink)

The Everyday Life Reader brings together a wide range of thinkers from Freud to Baudrillard with primary sources on everyday life such as the Mass Observation survey and key texts by Michel de Certeau and Henri Lefebvre, to provide a comprehensive resource on theories of everyday life. Ben Highmore's introduction surveys the development of thought about everyday life, setting theories in their social and historical context, and each themed section opens with an essay introducing the debates. Sections include: * Situating (...) the Everyday * Everyday Life and National Culture * Ethnography Near and Far * Reclamation Work * Everyday Things. (shrink)