ABSTRACT
The term welfarism was coined by the British economist John Hicks (1981: 136). It has been introduced into contemporary debate about social justice by Amartya Sen. Welfarism is a term denoting all theories that demand thatwe judge the state of a society in general, and just distributions in particular, by the welfare of the people concerned, and by their welfare only. Welfare is an emotional state, subjectively experienced by the person herself. More or less synonymous to welfare are the terms well-being, happiness, desire fulfilment, utility. Utility (from Latin ‘utilis’: useful) is the preferred term in economic analysis, and it is also the root of the word ‘utilitarianism’.
