This book is an assault on the notion that it is empirically accurate and legally and philosophically satisfactory to see humans as atomistic entities. It contends that our welfare is inextricably entangled with that of others, and accordingly law and ethics, in determining our best interests, should recognise the central importance of relationality, the performance of obligations, and (even apparently injurious) altruism.

"When one is dealing with matters like the welfare poor and control of threatening behavior and abuse of young children and teenage pregnancy, there are few neutrals." So begins Willard Richan's challenging new book on social welfare policy. Beyond Altruism proceeds from the assumption that social welfare policy is not formulated in an environment free from politics and special interests. The allocation and redistribution of resources, the setting of policy priorities, and even the licensing of social workers are issues that are highly charged and are of enormous signficance to both the parts and the whole of society.

Presents a collection of papers by economists theorizing on the roles of altruism and morality versus self-interest in the shaping of human behavior and institutions. Specifically, the authors examine why some persons behave in an altruistic way without any apparent reward, thus defying the economist's model of utility maximization. The chapters are accompanied by commentaries from representatives of other disciplines, including law and philosophy.

Argues that altruism is an inherent factor of group functionality and discusses how studying group function can promote positive changes to the human condition.

A landmark work of political and legal philosophy, Ronald Dworkin's Taking Rights Seriously was acclaimed as a major work on its first publication in 1977 and remains profoundly influential in the 21st century. A forceful statement of liberal principles - championing the legal, moral and political rights of the individual against the state - Dworkin demolishes prevailing utilitarian and legal-positivist approaches to jurisprudence. Developing his own theory of adjudication, he applies this to controversial public issues, from civil disobedience to positive discrimination. Elegantly written and cuttingly insightful, Taking Rights Seriously is one of the most important works of public thought of the last fifty years.

That ‘poor law was law’ is a fact that has slipped from the consciousness of historians of welfare in England and Wales, and in North America. Welfare's Forgotten Past remedies this situation by tracing the history of the legal right of the settled poor to relief when destitute. Poor law was not simply local custom, but consisted of legal rights, duties and obligations that went beyond social altruism. This legal ‘truth’ is, however, still ignored or rejected by some historians, and thus ‘lost’ to social welfare policy-makers. This forgetting or minimising of a legal, enforceable right to relief has not only led to a misunderstanding of welfare’s past; it has also contributed to the stigmatisation of poverty, and the emergence and persistence of the idea that its relief is a 'gift' from the state. Documenting the history and the effects of this forgetting, whilst also providing a ‘legal’ history of welfare, Lorie Charlesworth argues that it is timely for social policy-makers and reformists – in Britain, the United States and elsewhere – to reconsider an alternative welfare model, based on the more positive, legal aspects of welfare’s 400-year legal history.