The optimistic delusions to which humans are prone do make the quality of human life a little less bad than it otherwise would be. In this way, they partially palliate the human predicament—or at least they do so for those who have them. The quality of life just does not feel quite as bad as it would in the absence of the rose-colored glasses. I shall say more in the concluding chapter about whether this supports an argument for an optimistic response to the human predicament. For now, we need note only that to palliate a predicament is not to elude it. Even armed with various optimistic
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