In short, if we adhere to the standard of perfection in all our endeavors, we are left with nothing but mathematics and the White Album.

Humans react to danger when it is immediate, immoral, visible... Global warming does not press any of those buttons.

The good news is that going blind is not going to make you as unhappy as you think it will. The bad news is that winning the lottery will not make you as happy as you expect.

Global warming is a deadly threat precisely because it fails to trip the brain's alarm, leaving us soundly asleep in a burning bed.

Happiness refers to feelings, virtue refers to actions, and those actions can cause those feelings. But not necessarily and not exclusively.

The eye and brain are conspirators, and, like most conspiracies, theirs is negotiated behind closed doors, in the back room, outside of our awareness.

Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.