Benjamin Yelle

Benjamin Yelle received his Ph.D. from the University of Miami in 2014. His work focuses on issues in normative and applied ethics. In normative ethics, he is interested in the ways in which our nature as autonomous persons affects what is prudentially valuable for us – what our well-being consists in. More specifically, he works on carving out a theoretical space between traditional “subjective,” e.g. desire-satisfaction and hedonist theories, and “objective” e.g. objective-list and Eudaimonist, theories of welfare by offering a novel, broadly subjectivist theory which maintains that what is good for an individual depends upon what she values. Within applied ethics, he is working on formulating an attenuated conception of “consent” in the context of certain advanced directives which could be utilized by patients with degenerative neurological diseases to remain in control of their lives for as long as possible. He is also interested in the nature of happiness, its normative significance, and its role within a good life.