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Public Ethics Radio: Discretionary Time

Jan 9, 2009

Featuring
Robert E. Goodin

Robert E. Goodin

Australian National University

Lina Eriksson

Lina Eriksson

Flinders University

Christian Barry

Christian Barry

Australian National University; Ethics & International Affairs Editorial Board; Global Ethics Fellow Alumnus

Matt Peterson

Matt Peterson

The Atlantic; Former Ethics & International Affairs Assistant Editor

About the Series

Launched in August 2008, Public Ethics Radio featured thinkers who engage with ethics in public life. It connected vibrant debates in philosophy with real-world politics, on issues such as military intervention, international trade, and political corruption.

Attachments

What does it mean to live well? Robert Goodin and Lina Eriksson discover that income figures don’t tell the whole story. Missing from this picture is the degree of control an individual has over how her time is spent.

What does it mean to live well? The U.S. Census Bureau informs us that an individual American with an income of less than $10,590 lives below the poverty line and is eligible for federal assistance. Add children and the number rises slowly: a father and two young children, say, is poor when their income is less than $16,689.

Certainly these numbers strike us immediately as indicative of low well being. But, as we are informed by Robert Goodin and Lina Eriksson, income figures don’t tell the whole story. Missing from this picture is the degree of control an individual has over how her time is spent.

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© 2026 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

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