A common response here is that we should try harder to feel for others. Now, this might be a worthy demand when it comes to a specific individual, perhaps someone whose suffering I am ignoring or even causing. But it’s bad advice when many people are involved, including strangers. We are not psychologically constituted to feel toward a stranger as we feel toward someone we love. We are not capable of feeling a million times worse about the suffering of a million than about the suffering of one. Our gut feelings provide the wrong currency through which to evaluate our own moral actions.
