Final answer:
The purpose of welfare is to provide a safety net for society's most vulnerable, based on moral principles that foreground individual well-being. It is a subject of debate whether welfare should be designed to reduce long-term dependence and eliminate its own necessity, balanced with the need to protect individuals who cannot protect themselves.
Step-by-step explanation:
The welfare state is an institution designed to provide assistance and relieve inequalities within society, ensuring that all members have access to a basic level of well-being. Robert Goodin and other advocates argue that the primary purpose of welfare is to protect those unable to protect themselves from exploitation, thereby securing a minimal safety net for the most vulnerable individuals in society. Welfare-based principles, especially as explored by philosophers like John Rawls, emphasize the moral imperative for support towards those least advantaged, while challenging the idea that such mechanisms foster dependency or alleviate the responsibilities of individuals to contribute to the society that supports them.
Discussions on welfare often revolve around finding a balance between preventing fraud and dependence, and ensuring that those in need receive adequate support. Critics of the welfare system point to instances of misuse and the potential for encouraging a culture of dependency. However, reforms, such as those implemented in the 1990s, have shifted the responsibility of welfare to states and have aimed to reduce long-term dependence on federal support, suggesting a movement toward welfare systems that seek to eliminate the need for their own existence.
In the context of distributive justice, proponents of welfare argue that the state has a role in redistributing resources to enhance the welfare of its citizens, with policies guided by principles such as maximizing liberty and freedoms, and minimizing harms to the least well off. The fundamental question that motivates welfare policy is how to provide for the needs of society while respecting individual freedoms and encouraging personal responsibility.