Conservation and the Quality of Life: Practical Problems and Obstacles to Moral Solutions

When ‘quality of life’ is applied generally to all members of a national or world community it may refer vaguely to the common good. In this description it does not refer to any objective standard, but rather to one which is subjectively determined in particular historical circumstances and within a pattern of particular social conditions and values. What is acceptable as a quality of life in one society, or at one period of history, may not be acceptable in another. If there is anything in common to all of these judgements of quality of life it is an adequacy of the basic necessities of life. But ‘quality of life’ is more than a descriptive expression: it is also normative or prescriptive. It conveys the notion that the enjoyments or satisfactions to which it refers are those everyone ought to have as a person — a judgement which conveys an appreciation of a potential common good. Further, it is normative in its insistence that some persons in every country, such as those living at bare subsistence level, ought to have a higher standard of living, one which enables them to enjoy a basic quality of life enjoyed by others.