Laudable cosmopolitan pluralism can become amoral permissiveness. Sex tourists convince themselves that underage prostitution in southeast Asia is “just what they do”, while driving a hard bargain with someone struggling to feed her family is simply following the local bartering customs.
ReadPlacing importance on quality of life need not lead to denying the equality of lives. To say that all life is of equal value is to say that every life should be treated with the same respect and that no one has the right to judge one life to be more inherently valuable than another. This does not mean, however, that we cannot take into account quality of life when deciding how tightly we should cling to it.
Read“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another.” There is some truth in this, but good and bad cannot be defined purely relative to expectation and experience. Many things or states of affairs really are better or worse than others.
ReadSometimes a poor measure is worse than none at all. By acting as though wellbeing is measurable, the government is glossing over contested issues of value, creating an illusion that we all agree about what wellbeing is.
ReadAtheist philosophers may consider themselves superior to those who turn to religion to avoid dealing with such unpalatable truths, preferring to believe that, in the long run, all will be for the good and the meek will inherit the earth. But in our daily lives, we avoid thinking too much about the meaningless suffering of millions. And who could blame us?
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