As a good approximation, everyone who wants to have a healthy lifestyle already has one*.
This is an under-explored topic in modern world-optimization and in Utilitarian theory. When a large population has a revealed preference for unhealthy lifestyles, do we respect that and include those choices in our total/average welfare calculations, or do we think that overriding their agency is an improvement?
This is an under-explored topic in modern world-optimization and in Utilitarian theory. When a large population has a revealed preference for unhealthy lifestyles, do we respect that and include those choices in our total/average welfare calculations, or do we think that overriding their agency is an improvement?