On creating the strongest possible philosophical foundation for our efforts.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a rather pragmatic essay about our engagement with colleagues in states that differ in their values. Today, I hope the reader forgives me for a bit more of an abstract essay, one that I have been mulling in my head for some time.
These Healthiest Goldfish essays are fundamentally about making a case for health. These essays, and the books they have helped shape, are, in a sense, efforts to bring together thoughts that have been germinating for a long time about how to create a healthier world. This process has been sharpened by the experience of COVID-19, arguably the most serious threat to public health in a century, which exposed how far we still have to go before we get to a world that is truly optimized for health. Underlying these efforts at sharpening my thoughts about health is the assumption that health matters—that it is a necessary factor for accessing everything we value in life, from the capacity to pursue productive, meaningful work to being able to spend time with family and friends. We all, I think, share the sense that health matters. Yet it is often just this—a sense, rather than a fully-formed idea or philosophical framework. The goal of this newsletter and its associated publications has been to shape a conversation—in partnership with you, the reader—that helps develop this sense into a new practical philosophy of health, one that can help ground our efforts towards a healthier world in the years to come.
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