People are not clones in a monoculture, so what satisfies one will frustrate another, and the only way they can end up equal is if they are treated unequally.
Economics, even capitalist economics, assumes that there are desiring beings, but it does not ask why these beings desire one thing rather than another. Economists say that they are interested not in the reasons for people’s preferences, but in revealed preferences, i.e. preferences that are enacted. Economics does not ask about the reasons for these preferences – why would a mass of people prefer to buy cocaine rather than books or cruise vacations...? – it takes into account and calculates the preferences expressed, i.e., the exchange that is acted out. Exchange is an act, not a belief, and it is a more or less risky exchange.
Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle — the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.
The habit of spending nearly every waking moment lost in thought leaves us at the mercy of whatever our thoughts happen to be. Meditation is a way of breaking this spell.
Consciousness, much like our feelings, is based on a representation of the body and how it changes when reacting to certain stimuli. Self-image would be unthinkable without this representation.
