Title
Home and Our Need for It
Department/School
Philosophy
Date
2019
Document Type
Article
Keywords
home, happiness, basic psychological needs, virtue ethics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5840/jpr20191014142
Abstract
Aviezer Tucker claims that “home-searching is a basic trait of being human,” yet as a rule the concept of home has not been central in recent Anglophonic ethics. I will argue, though, that giving an important place to the concept of home should be far more common. I begin by showing that ‘home’ is a particular kind of concept, what Daniel Russell calls a model concept. I then turn to the main task of the paper, the construction of a theoretical model of ‘home,’ bringing various treatments of the concept—linguistic, literary, and social scientific—into reflective equilibrium. Security, comfort, and belonging will turn out to be key features of the model. I close by noting some ways in which the concept of home is much more important to moral theory, and especially to virtue ethics, than has generally been recognized. The title refers both to our need for home, as humans, and to our need for ‘home,’ as moral theorists.
Published in
Journal of Philosophical Research
Citation/Other Information
Toner, Christopher. "Home and Our Need for It." Journal of Philosophical Research 44 (2019): 251–272. https://doi.org/10.5840/jpr20191014142.