Abstract

Douglas J. Den Uyl expresses agreement with David Kelley's thesis in A Life of One's Own that the welfare state is not a good thing both for moral reasons and for its practical consequences. But the relationship between the moral and the political is more ambiguous than might first be imagined. The main questions explored are twofold: Is Kelley presupposing the truth of his own position in criticizing another—and does this alter the presentation from argument to rhetoric?; and secondly, is Kelley's approach to the moral issue the only one that can be used to criticize the welfare state?