ABSTRACT
This book discusses the value and meaning of life by focusing more on problems than on people (though of course several people, or at least their writings, are discussed at some length) and attempts to push a particular line, rather than broadly surveying the field. People ask, think, and worry about our relation to the environment, to animals, to the planet’s future. They care most about people, and about how we can fashion a good life for ourselves and our successors in a world of limited resources. They ask about the allocation of these resources; how they should be divided between rich and poor, young and old, and — most important — between present and future people. The concerns over population size, population growth, and whether and how this should be managed, are no longer the province of academics alone but near (although it might be said, still not near enough) to the forefront of everyday thinking.
