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Check your motives!!! "Not because you owe it to anyone????". Boy, how magnanimous. The underlying argument is IN FACT, "you owe it to the public". "Makes you better off" is being used in a collective sense, meaning your type would be better off. Really, maybe an 89 year old person would agree with you that his age collective would be better off. Harrison should be the final arbiter of what makes him better off. The argument you are putting forth can be considered both a utilitarian and an altruistic one. As a pedantic point, connection to a sewer is not necessarily a public issue as it can be done privately too. I suspect you are making a case for "objective value". The problem is that you are ending up making a case that "you" should do it even if you don't believe it is best for you and that is where it has the altruistic basis. Although, maybe Harrison is too stupid to make such judgments. Therefore, we need the philosopher kings to force him to do what is right. If you start with making the case that "I wish you had done it, it would make me safer", that would be more rationally self interested and you might be able to build on that. Changing the wording of "public good" to "urban hygiene" to "expert opinion" works in other forums but shouldn't work here.