Economics and Philosophy: Harry G. Frankfurt on Caring

von: Rico Hofmann

CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION 4

1.1. BACKGROUND 4
1.2. INTENTION AND STRUCTURE  4

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR 5

2.1. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION 5
2.2. MOST IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS 6

3. THE CONCEPT OF CARING 7

3.1. THE REASON FOR ACTION AND THE CONTENT OF HAPPINESS  7
3.2. THE DISTINCTION OF WANTING AND CARING  8
3.3. THE TWO WAYS OF AVOIDING FRUSTRATION 9

4. THE MEANING OF CARING  10

4.1. THE NOTION OF HARM 10
4.2. VOLITIONAL COMMITMENT  11
4.3. THE NOTION OF NEED 11

5. LOVE 12

5.1. LOVE AS A DISINTERESTED CONCERN 13
5.2. PRACTICAL RELEVANCE 13

6. SUMMARY 14

7. PERSONAL CRITIQUE 15

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND

This term paper deals with an essay by the American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt “On Caring”. Harry Frankfurt is one of those thinkers who has the ability to provoke new and interesting discussions in philosophy, while keeping his language simple to understand even for the lay mind. This particular essay was published in 1999 in a book called “Necessity, Volition, and Love” which contained a series of essays dealing with various concepts of human needs, wishes and desires. The paper in hand follows a presentation held in the course of the seminar “Economics and Philosophy: Recent Research on Happiness and Well-Being” at the University of St. Gallen on November 19th 2003. Both the presentation and this paper only concentrate on the first part of Frankfurt’s essay, called “Caring and Necessity”. The second part, called “The Necessities of Love”, will not be discussed.

1.2. INTENTION AND STRUCTURE

The goal of this treatise now is to present the essay in a more detailed manner and to provide some deeper insight into Frankfurt’s concepts by bringing in a couple of self-chosen examples of everyday life. Having this objective in mind, I will begin with a presentation of some biographical information on the author and an overview of his work. This is especially important in order to follow Frankfurt’s explorations about the ways people think about themselves intellectually and morally, and how ideals and values shape our lives. Throughout his career, Frankfurt continued to develop these concepts, and this is why it is essential to quickly look at his first works, which laid out the grounds for his thinking. The following discussion of the essay “On Caring” will then be divided into three parts: A first part will deal with the idea that caring can be understood as a principal reason for human action and therefore as a means for the pursuit of happiness, and is followed by a discussion about what Page 5 of 17 caring in this sense actually means. Thirdly, we will shortly look at the concept of love that Frankfurt sketches in the last passage of this first part of the essay, leading to the second part , which we will not take into consideration as stated above.

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

2.1. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION1

Harry Gordon Frankfurt was born in the United States on May 29th 1929 in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. In 1949, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts and in 1954 his Ph.D., both at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. From 1954 until 1956, he served in the U.S. army before he became an assistant professor at Ohio State University. After six years, he turned to an assignment as an associate professor at State University of New York at Binghamton, before becoming a research associate at Rockefeller University (New York) in 1963. Frankfurt then also became a professor there. He was a visiting fellow of All Souls College at Oxford University between 1971 and 1972, and came back to the United States to become a chairman at Rockefeller University. In 1976, Frankfurt was offered a professorship of philosophy at Yale University, which he gladly accepted and kept until 1990, when he moved to Princeton University. From 1979 on, he was even a lecturer in law at the Yale Law School and from 1978 until 1987 the chairman of the Yale Philosophy Department.

From 1990 until recently, Frankfurt has been a professor of philosophy at Princeton, New Jersey, occupying the post of President of the American Philosophical Association from 1992 until 1993. Since 2002, he is now professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. The major emphasis of his work at Princeton lay in moral philosophy, philosophy of mind and action, 17th century realism and – more often – ethical theory and applied ethics. His current work now centers on exploring the relevance of love, non-moral goals and standards to issues concerning practical reason, and on the distinction between being active and being passive.2 Frankfurt has written more than 50 scholarly articles, essays and reviews, as well as four books.

2.2. MOST IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS

[...]

1 http://www.gavagai.de/philosoph/HHP19.htm (15.11.2003) and http://www.law.upenn.edu/academics/institutes/ilp/200304bios/Frankfurt.pdf (15.11.2003)

2 http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/00/q1/0228-frankfurt.htm (08.02.2004)