There isn't any right answer. Answers to what is good or bad is a matter of taste, to borrow from Nietzsche.

To me the example has messianic quality. One person suffers immensely to save others from suffering. Does the sense that there is a 'right' answer come from a Judeo-Christian sense of what is appropriate. Is this a sort of bias in line with biases towards expecting facts to conform to a story?

Also, this example suggests to me that the value pluralism of Cowen makes much more sense than some reductive approach that seeks to create one objective measure of good and bad. One person might seek to reduce instances of illness, another to maximize reported happiness, another to maximize a personal sense of beauty. IMO, there isn't a judge who will decide who is right and who is wrong, and the decisive factor is who can marhsal the power to bring about his will, as unsavory as that might be (unless your side is winning).

Perhaps the Internet could be of assistance in getting some benefits from radical honesty. You could keep a blog anonymously and write down what you really think about people. You could change names and places to avoid hurting yourself or others, but the substance would be, hopefully, unchanged. Then people could give you feedback (even anonymously if they don't like being known as someone who hurt someone).

I think there's a website out there that allows you to query people about something and people who don't know you can write what they think. People are sometimes mean for the sake of being mean, rather than being honest, though, which is problematic.