The discussion of 'need' and 'welfare' so far has been based on people as 'individuals'. One
view of 'society' is that it consists simply of many individuals; 'social welfare', therefore, is
nothing but the sum of individual welfares. Oakeshott (1975, p.340), a conservative
political philosopher, condemns the idea of society as an abstraction; it implies, he argues,
some association between people without specifying what the association is. Jeremy
Bentham, who historically must be considered one of the most important writers on
welfare issues, argued that