I'd like to see everybody quit smoking. But the real message here is the demise of the idea of personal responsibility for one's own behavior. As recently as 20 years ago, it was understood in American law that if a person contributed to his own injuries, he was barred from recovering damages. Not only is it common knowledge, the warnings are on the wrappers. Awards like this one are possible only because trial lawyers have been able to persuade juries that people are not responsible for their own choices.
People can quit.
But the idea of holding people accountable for their behavior is apparently a thing of the past. And this attitude indicates even broader changes in our legal philosophy. Common law, which we inherited from England, was a kind of moral reasoning. Judges and juries applied principles to specific situations, often based on biblical ideas of fairness and justice. But law today has been detached from any transcendent standard of authority.