‘Welfare’ or well-being is often translated into a specific set of issues, such as health or command over resources, because that is a practical way of pinning it down. It is, however, a vague, elusive concept. Welfare might be material; it might be subjective; it might be socially defined, or otherwise external to the person.

Welfare as a matter for individuals

There are many approaches to understanding people’s individual interests, and all have their weaknesses. Some definitions are subjective, based on people’s happiness or subjective well-being; that might be identified by asking people, looking for ‘inter-subjective’ tests that are shared between people socially, or perhaps by looking at some indicator of contentment, such as health. There are definitions based on what people want, or perhaps what they choose: what people choose, the economists’ proxy for ‘utility’, might be based not on personal preferences, but on established patterns of behaviour. There are normative tests, based on some kind of external standard. There are comparative standards, which consider only people’s circumstances by comparison with the things that other people have. And there are consequentialist understandings, which focus on the outcomes that follow from an action. There is always, Robeyns argues, an ‘irreducible plurality’ of issues.

Hayek argued that people have to be allowed to judge their well-being for themselves. He put it this way:

Liberty, in the sense of the absence of interference with individual actions, is both a precondition for individuals to be able to exercise choice, and a form of welfare in its own right.