Posted by sid on February 11, 2002, at 10:43:40
In reply to The Mental Illness Suffering Conversion Table., posted by jane d on February 11, 2002, at 0:38:18
How interesting !
As an economist, I can tell you that we can only compare one's person welfare (or misery) to this same person's welfare (or misery) under different assumptions (or at a different time!). Making welfare (or misery) comparisons between different people is impossible because we don't even have a unit to measure welfare (or misery). In economics we measure welfare in utility; so we say that 2 utils are better than 1 util, but then 1 util may not represent the same thing for a person and its neighbor. Utility is an ordinal concept, while here we are looking for a cardinal measure.However, sometimes, when cardinality is needed, we try to elicit comparison points by monetarizing welfare (or utility) or misery (disutility).
So we might ask: how much would you willing to pay to get rid of all symptoms and resume a normal life right now? How about in 1 month? And in 3 months? Etc... Of course, the amount stated needs to be realistic and take into account a person's current budget and borrowing capacity. Given that many people with depression are jobless, a realistic willingness-to-pay (WTP) measure would not be very high. But still, comparisons could be made between people's WTPs. And hence between people's eagerness to get rid of their symptoms. That would be a way to compare our misery.
- sid
poster:sid
thread:18064
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020202/msgs/18078.html