Reasoned arguments that contain implicit valuations of life, however coherent and compelling, are always in part explanations ex post facto of the instincts and temperament, personality, and character that influence every aspect of the experience of the individual. That is why two people can see life in entirely different ways, irrespective of their material conditions—and often enough in ways that fly in the face of those conditions.
Themselves the products of the complex and ongoing interactions between genes and environment that constitute who we are, emotions color every moment of our lives and every one of our experiences. This is why being a multi-millionaire is a far cry from offering protection against suicide, depression, addiction, and all manner of mental illness and emotional turmoil, whereas a vagrant or an indigent living in the gutters of a giant metropolis or a village in the countryside can be radiantly happy and carefree.
Money and wealth are difficult to underestimate in their power to transform the material conditions and change the outward appearance of a person’s life. But they cannot address the more essential a priori determinants of that person’s empirical response to their life and the world. No material conditions can change that, of course, though like many conversations in philosophy, how changeable such conditions are in the first place is subject to debate.
