Overview

Hospitableness is the name of the trait possessed by hospitable people. It is clearly something to do with hospitality, so I shall begin with that. We can define hospitality, in its basic meaning, as follows: it is the giving of food, drink and sometimes accommodation to people who are not regular members of a household. Typically givers, or hosts, provide these things in their own homes, and the point is that they are sharing their own sustenance with their guests. This notion may be stretched in various directions: for example, a firm is said to provide hospitality if it gives food and drink to visitors. But the central idea of the concept remains that of sharing one s own home and provision with others.

In doing so, a host accepts responsibility for the overall welfare of his or her guests. As the eighteenth-century gourmet and food writer Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin says: To entertain a guest is to make yourself responsible for his happiness so long as he is beneath your roof (Brillat-Savarin, 1970, p. 14). If this is a host s task, it is concerned with more than food, drink and shelter: it means that a host must try to cheer up a miserable guest, divert a bored one, care for a sick one. Traditionally the most important responsibility of all was for the guest s safety hospitality was a kind of sanctuary, and the host was thought of as having undertaken a solemn obligation to...