We are always, then, acting to some extent in the dark, not only because we are imperfectly informed and there are things that we do not know (such as the thoughts and feelings, if any, of patients in a persistent vegetative state), but because not all things are commensurable even if known. As Hippocrates put it quite a long time ago, judgment is difficult.

Having known no shortage, they are not grateful for an abundance that exceeds all previous abundance, nor do they enquire where it has come from. For them, abundance is natural, hardship anomalous. By the standards of all previously existing humanity, and much of humanity that still exists today, they are — in short — spoilt.

Many among them are sufficiently spoilt that they revolt against what has spoilt them, namely the regime of private property. They have absorbed and made their own a prejudice that is widespread and that they believe to be generous, namely that against the rich, though it is an open question whether this or racial prejudice was responsible for more deaths in the last century.