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Is one human life worth more than another?
I think this is one of the questions of life, and after a while of thought on the subject I cannot come up with a conclusion.
What do you think? |
Yes. My life and the lives of my family and friends are worth more than the lives of complete strangers. Especially strangers who don't hold critical roles in society.
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The life(i assume you mean the continuation of) that has more left is worth more.
An 11 year old is worth more than a 60 yr old. |
What if the 11 year old was in a vegetative state or had an undetected disorder that would kill him in 10 years? And the 60 year old was, like, Einstein?
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To whom? "Worth" requires an indirect object, some entity to that is it worth to.
Are all lives worth the same to me? No, like glatt said, the importance of lives moves outward from my immediate family, to friends, then local community, world. I would always choose the death of 1,000 strangers over the death of my daughter or son. Are all lives worth the same to society as law? Sometimes. The law tries to view every life as equal, and treats punishment and restitution accordingly. Are all lives worth the same to society as economy? Clearly not. The life of each person has economic weight derived from many things, including ability, risk, returned value to society, and yes, luck. Are all lives worth the same to society as social support (medicine, welfare, etc.)? Ah. This is the great political question of our time. I'll pass. There's no good universal answer to this question - it's too broad. You have to give a context, "for whom". |
If you take the view that human life is sacred, that it is infinitely valuable, then all lives are equal.
infinity time 60 years of life left equals infinity infinity times 1 year of life left equals infinity So you can't hold the view that human life is sacred and then say "women and children first." Well, I suppose one could hold that view, but they would be wrong. |
are you saying that this kind of question can't possibly be answered seriously?
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cuz that's kind of what I was saying
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It might be easy to gauge the worth of yourself and your loved ones.
But to measure the value of stranger's life, you must put yourself in their place. That sounds good, right? Okay, now put yourself in the place of a permanently braindead person being kept alive by machines. As that person, how much would you be able to figure your own life is worth? Okay, now put yourself in the place of a miserable, self-loathing, drug addict, whose every day actions inidcate that they have given up on life. As that person, how much would you be able to figure your own life is worth? This isn't working! Okay, now put yourself in the place of a basically decent person, who commits many good acts and kind deeds, but whose own low self-esteem won't let them see their true value to society. Maybe this person has a chemical imbalance and is suicidal. As that person, how much would you be able to figure your own life is worth? This definitely isn't working. This has to be determined by an indifferent outisde source in order to make any sense. So, how much is a human life worth to an impartial observer... let's say one who has no stake in the affairs of humanity? Is it more or less than the life of a grub worm? Is it more or less than the life of a tree? From one extreme to the other, you're never going to like the answer to this question. |
Mine's worth more than yours. End of discussion.
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Mine's worth more than all y'alls. :lol:
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I can't find the direct quote, but monster once had a great line to the effect of, "All y'all can die in a fire if it means my baby has a 1 in 20 chance of being a little less hurt."
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According to my dad my life is only worth $20. How much would your parent/spouse/sibling/children pay to get rid of you?
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What anything is worth is always a matter of perspective. Lives are no different.
My parents never wanted to get rid of me. |
You would need to clarify "life" and "worth". But yea, mine and my families is worth more than anyone else if it is being threatened by someone else. Then they lose. I win. Go life.
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My parents admitted that I was adopted. But I kept coming back.
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I've heard alternately that I was found in a cabbage patch, or under a rock. Maybe it was a rock in a cabbage patch.
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I like your user name, by the way, Operation:Mindcrime and Warning are amazing :D Sorry for the wording on the title, but I think everyone knows what I'm talking about. |
Reading assignment: Crime and Punishment
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My Mum was going to call the local children's home to take me away (I assume for free) if I didn't stop being such a spiteful little girl. Hmmmm, no complexes built there then.
I value people I love most of course. But otherwise, I believe all human life is equal. After all, the same random acts happen to all types of people - the lottery winning rapist and the devout tsunami victim, the hale and healthy reformed addict and the war veteran who gets his face smashed in for his pension. It's only love that gives our lives any real distinction. That and bacon. |
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Some of the shit that lives around my area need whacking
Most of them are scum who would steal the breath out of your lungs without a second thought.. Chav mothers with ugly Chav children that contribute fuck all to humanity they are just leeches that suck the system dry.. and cause havoc and mayhem throughout the housing estate.. (not that I'm bitter and twisted):D |
Read "The Ones Who Walked Away From the Omelas" by Ursala K. LeGuin. Great story about this very subject. One of my favorite short stories.
My short answer. No. |
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Was just having a wee rant |
My mom tried to marry me to a Syrian. I am sure a dowry was involved. So the real question for me is:
How many goats is one life worth over another? Not if. Yes she regrets her actions now.........But since I am older and used up in their realm, and I am no longer a virgin- My mom would have to give a lot of goats to get rid of me....... I believe I am actually a commodity, but there is no convincing some crazy canadian syrian, possible terrorist, of this......The failure I believe, is that no one even tried. Being that he was probably an ugly loser that just didn't know how to talk to women, and has no station in my society.....I am of the "perspective" that he would in fact, owe me some goats just for inhaling any part my oxygen. But that's perspectivism for you. I think it was insane to be talking to my mom about how I am not going to go marry her neighbor's syrian son. The fact that I had to even have those conversations makes me insane. She had arranged my marriage. FAIL. lol! But I still (secretly) wonder how many goats I am worth. How many goats does it take to marry me off anyway? :( |
Cicero, I'll bid 5 goats AND a donkey for ya. :)
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5 goats , a donkey And a Cow !!!
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I'll see your 5 goats , a donkey and a Cow... and raise you one spastic chicken.
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Fools.
Cicero is at least a ten-camel girl. |
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don't be jealous, Cicero, but it seems Chelsea Clinton is worth 40 goats and 20 cows.
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@ Zen :lol:
I wonder if they would have kept Hillary if we offered something similar. I would be good for part of that if they would keep her in Kenya. |
I'll make you guys a deal.
I'll marry the first person that will round up and take all these cocks off my hands- those I seem to have no shortage of. :p |
I've been thinking about this, and I've decided that there are definitely some people I'd pay less to save than others. All lives are worth something...it's just that some are worth more than others.
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No, some are just worth more to others, than others.
My life means squat to Joe Schmoe. But Joe might dive into the water to save a solid gold baby because it's HIS solid gold baby. My apologies to Jack Handey. |
Yeah but it's all about me, so what I think is really the only relevant thought in this discussion. :)
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Oi, Sheldon, paradise awaits. |
Oh wait, you didn't fall for that 72 cocks as your eternal reward ploy, did you?
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HA HA HA HA - Cic the terrorist! lol ... err haggis
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Point: moot
All human life is worthless except in its service to
:fsm: Only :fsm: can decide a human's worth |
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You're talking herds of elephants there. |
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Singer establishes what he calls an 'expanding circle of empathy' as one of the defining elements of human nature. It is natural to care for family, especially immediate family, and the evolutionary underpinnings of this behaviour are obvious. Similarly it's natural to favour compatriots and people with similar ethnic background over aliens, strangers and foreigners. We can easily observe the natural occurrence of xenophobia as well. But what marks human nature as distinct from other species is progress from instinctive self interest to egalitarian universalism and the ability to feel the discomfort of strangers, of other races, and at some point, of other species. These ideas aren't completely novel, and most Buddhists would recognize them, but Singer has developed them in a rigorous way into a coherent ethical system. Intuitively, most people judge negatively a person who deprives his or her own children in order to help others. This has actually been established in a number of surveys. But Singer asks quite reasonably, how can parents justify spending more on toys for their children than many families have to spend on the essentials of life? He makes a clear argument that this is unethical. In other words, he says, it is unethical to value one's own children so much more highly than those of strangers. I think it's also worth considering what it is that glatt might consider a 'critical role in society'. Would that be the emergency care specialist that revives him after his heart attack? Or the gangsta rapper I'm listening to on my iPod? Valuing people according to their role in society raises an interesting question about what kind of society we're talking about. Many western cultures have modeled themselves on imperial Rome, a violent, philistine, stratified, slave owning, misogynistic dictatorship. At the same time, we've all observed with mild curiosity the rapid extinction of a wondrous variety of pre-industrial cultures scattered across the globe that, often as not, reflect values of gentleness and communal harmony that Western culture is unlikely to ever be able to comprehend, let alone aspire to. On top of all this, I think the first question to ask about how we value others is, how do we value ourselves? |
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Actually, I have some questions for you Mercenary? Are you homophobic? If so, well, thats pretty much all I need to know. If not, can you tell me why a kid in a redneck town would expose himself to stigma and violence by choosing to be attracted to men? Also, could you tell me the difference between volition and experience, or an emotion and an act? |
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Among the many, many problems I have with Singer, he thinks that children younger than 2 and the mentally handicapped and have no inherent value, and can be killed for any reason, including the simple convenience of the caregiver.
Singer is the living reductio ad absurdum of utilitarianism. |
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Its all very well to grumble at the uncompromising nature of some consequentialist conclusions, but unless you can provide coherent alternatives, you're stuck on the same path. So what are those alternatives? Something from outer space? Tablets of stone? |
Utilitarianism isn't coherent. It's an absolutely untenable ethical system.
Singer himself doesn't come anywhere close to following the harsh edicts he so cavalierly decrees. He lives on far more than $30,000 a year (he states that unless you donate any income above that to alleviate hunger, you are committing murder), and he didn't manage to put a pillow over his mother's face, even after she had descended into Alzheimer's to the point where she was "no longer a person". Singer is a joke. |
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And you still haven't suggested any rational basis for an ethics besides the consequences of acts. |
Sorry man, I don't have the time or the inclination to spew undergrad intro to philosophy notes back and forth.
Singer and others of his ilk get the question wrong. They want to drag a modernist theory of knowledge along with them into a post-modern world, and it just won't work. Ethics isn't rationally derivable from first principles. Consequentialist Ethics are concerned with an abstract calculus that can be applied universally to all possible acts-of-a-kind. The world doesn't actually work like that, which is why Singer and others don't bother actually trying to LIVE the extreme positions they argue for. What is called for instead is moral wisdom, or virtue. Put down the Singer (unless, of course, you need to study up for the midterm) and pick up some Alasdair MacIntyre instead. You'll find it a much better reflection of how human beings actually live and move and breathe as moral beings. |
Gotta love those scots! I'm a big fan of Richard Holloway. But yeah. I can see where you're coming from.
But I think somewhere between 'Virtue' and 'Duty' there's actually room for a humble little concept, verging on the ethological, which is called 'empathy', which to me is something innate, and not entirely unique to humans. The interesting thing about empathy is that it can be educated, to a large extent by understanding the possibility and extent of harm. What I can't accept is that there is such a thing as an objective 'knowledge' of the nature of virtue, which seems to be what Aristotle and other supernaturalists want us to believe. |
I am really not much for philosphy or philosophers. I prefer something more *thinks* nailed down: hence I am an historian not a philosopher :P
That said, i think Singer has some interesting things to say. Some worrying ones too, but some of it is genuinely intriguing. I don;t think he is under any obligation to live by his philosphy and I get the distinct impression that he has simply followed his ethical philosphy to their logical conclusion in many instances. That's his task, as a philospher/ethicist: to set the parameters of his theory and then follow them out where they go to. It is no more uncomfortable than many other ethical/philosphical theories, once you track them to their logical conclusions. Such theories are by their nature, artificial: the human factor will bugger up the best and worst of theories once an attempt is made to live by them. Gah. Philosophers. Historians are way more fun :) |
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