What is the value of a human life?

intrapersona

How would you even find that out?

* How much is it worth in terms of money? Since 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency set the value of a human life at $9.1 million.

* How much is it worth in terms of how much their loved ones value them? It is common that people in love will sacrifice their own life for their partner or offspring. Also popular but less common is suicide once a beloved dies (romeo and juliet scenario).

* How much is a single life worth considered purely as one's own subjectivity? In other words, how much do you think life is worth living and how readily would you be to throw it away if the circumstances of life decreased in your favour? Many people disagree with the value of their own subjectivity as the rate of suicide in the US is 10-30 per 100,000. And while that is low "relatively", most people agree on the fact that life is hard work, we don't know why we are here or what this all is but yet we just take it in stride and do our best until our death beds (all the while not considering the fact that we have an unconscious drive for survival impacting our judgement on the value of life itself).

These are all well and good, but what I want to define is what the value of life is outside of a human perspective? Are we just scum on a rock? Or does a human bear some cosmic usefulness?

Mariner

Value is subjective. If you want to conceive of the value of [human] life "outside of a human perspective", you will still require an evaluating subject. In the eyes of God, one human life is worth more than the universe; in the eyes of the Devil, the worth is similar (though for different goals); in the eyes of Dracula, one human life is worth as much as a nice steak for us. In the eyes of the Matrix, we are worth plenty. And so on.

intrapersona

Value is subjective. If you want to conceive of the value of [human] life "outside of a human perspective", you will still require an evaluating subject. In the eyes of God, one human life is worth more than the universe; in the eyes of the Devil, the worth is similar (though for different goals); in the eyes of Dracula, one human life is worth as much as a nice steak for us. In the eyes of the Matrix, we are worth plenty. And so on. — Mariner

So if I can't go beyond subjectivity, how can I know the truth about what a human life is worth. Is there not an absolute truth to all things? A prime explanation? If there wasn't, then how could anything exist? Anything that can exist, can be explained. Likewise, with the value of a human life.

Let's say you are right, and that worth is only subjective. Well then, the universe would be no worse off without my existence AND that all the "tragedy" that occurred from my death would actually just be some cooked-up bullshit that my peers felt because they (humans) need emotions to keep families bonded for survival. They need this ability to define worth for survival even though it bears no relation to objective existence? For no worth can be encountered in objectivity?

Mariner

Anything that can exist, can be explained. Likewise, with the value of a human life. — intrapersona

Sure. But there is no single value. All of those values can be explained. They coexist. All of them are true, but one does not trump the other.

Value is an ethical notion, and ethics require free agents. Free as in "capable of developing their independent evaluations". If there were objective truths about value, there wouldn't be any ethical freedom (or, the ethical freedom would be comparable to the freedom of believing that 2+2 = green).

Sivad

I think a more interesting question is how much value would we place on our lives and the lives of others if we knew all the facts. I think if we knew for certain that there was nothing beyond the physical and that our existence ends with death or that determinism is true and we really aren't anything more than an epiphenomenon of physical processes then I think a good percentage of people would likely place less value on their own lives and the lives of others. I think what keeps most people going in this world is hope and fear and that in a purely physical and completely meaningless universe the vast majority of people do not have lives worth living. I wouldn't want to live their lives anyway.

intrapersona

Profound... thanks ;)

TheMadFool

Coming at this from a biological perspective, we're the apex predator on the planet. To add, we're also the apex pollutor of the environment - from the humble plastic bag to deadly radioactive waste - making us an unprecedented threat to the global ecology. So, yes, we do have a value but I'm sorry to point out it's not what you think. $9.1 million dollars!! What rubbish!

unenlightened

So if I can't go beyond subjectivity, how can I know the truth about what a human life is worth. — intrapersona

My life is worth everything to me, probably not so much to you. And vice versa I'd imagine. If a fiver would save your life, I might be persuaded, and a fiver well spent will certainly save a life in Africa. So I could probably save a life for the cost of this bottle of wine I'm drinking. But I'm drinking the wine. So even subjectively, there is not a fixed price, and not every life has subjective value to me.

This is 'how you can know the truth', look at how you live.

Wayfarer

Value is subjective — Mariner

I think that value could be describe in terms of qualitative judgement, rather than as being simply subjective. Certainly it's subjective in the sense that a value judgement is something that requires a perspective, and a perspective implies a subject. But I think to say that values are therefore only subjective reduces them to being something very like a matter of opinion - something that is 'true for me'.

If there were objective truths about value, there wouldn't be any ethical freedom — Mariner

'Objective', or 'quantifiable'? I think what is generally understood to be 'objective' is that which is quantifiable, and which can be observed 'in the public domain', i.e. reproduced in the third person.

But I also think the assumed dichotomy between 'subjective' value and 'objective' facts is THE major underlying tension in contemporary ethical theory.

Anything that can exist, can be explained — intrapersona

You'd be bound to enjoy 13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time then.

Raleigh

how much do you think life is worth living — intrapersona

It's common to use language like this (i.e., talk about whether/how much life is worth living) but I find it circular and personally unappealing. It assumes some point outside the self where one could look at life and choose, as a consumer might, whether to accept or reject the deal. My preferred framework:

How much value could you (or I) create with your (or my) life?

BC

* How much is it worth in terms of money? Since 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency set the value of a human life at $9.1 million — intrapersona

And what does $9 represent -- the value of the life so far, or the value of the income likely to be earned in the future? That's how insurance companies figure it: how much wealth are you going to earn in the time you probably have left. Therefore, a 90 year old is worth about nothing, whereas a 19 year old is worth much more.

↪Raleigh

I like your formulation: "How much value could I create with my life?" I assume you mean more than monetary value. A mother might not earn any cash in her life, but give birth to and nurture a person of future enormous worth to the world. (The same could be said of a father.)

Raleigh

↪Bitter Crank

Thanks. Definitely not limited to monetary value!

Noblosh

↪intrapersona

Human life value is the value humans are willing to give to their lifes. To find that out, humans can put themselves questions like: 'At what point would I be willing to sell / sacrifice (depending on their values) myself?' and 'Does suicide make any sense to me?'. To find out a current objective value of human life, you may need to calculate the added value humanity is responsible for and then divide it by the number of humans that existed and died till this point.

Mariner

@Wayfarer

Values are both subjective and objective. The dichotomy is not applicable to them. To that extent, my wording was imprecise, especially when I mentioned "objective truths about value"; a better way to put it would have been "if there were objective truths about a given value".

It is important to keep in mind that values are subjective and objective, simultaneously. They are not "neither". Any given value will be 100% subjective and 100% objective.

Chany

↪Mariner

Define what you mean by "subjective" and "objective".

Mariner

X is subjective if it varies, freely, according to different subjects. X is objective (in ethics -- in ontology this would have to be expanded) if it is true independent of any subject's stance towards it.

"I should not rape" is subjective because many people disagree with it. And it is objective because I should not rape. (In other words, because those who disagree with it are wrong). Note that when I use words like "wrong" and "should" I'm subtly invoking objectivity. Ethical propositions occupy the border between subject and object.

"I prefer chocolate to vanilla" is subjective (because many people disagree with it), but it is not objective (people who disagree with it are not wrong).

"2+2=4" is not subjective (people who understand the meaning of the symbols never disagree with it), and it is objective (because if someone disagreed with it, he would be wrong).

Not-subjective nor-objective examples would have to enter the realm of nonsense (like, "my hunger is green since q"), since language, used properly, has an intrinsic subjective/objective structure, which is why both words (subjective/objective) are used in grammar in specialized senses.

_db

Are we just scum on a rock? Or does a human bear some cosmic usefulness? — intrapersona

I mean, we produce entropy fairly well, but so do all successful biological systems. It's not exactly the purpose anyone was wanting, though. "You exist to entropify" doesn't really fill the gaping hole of meaninglessness. Wow, I am so glad I exist to poop out entropy. Aren't the stars just beautiful?!

Wayfarer

↪Mariner

Fair enough. I think what I'm trying to get at is a 'domain of real values', which in itself seems a paradoxical idea in today's world. But I think you get the drift.

The 'scum on a rock' meme, is part of the consequence of discovering the fact of evolutionary biology. Sometimes, I like to think of myself as amongst the most successful of pond slime (to have come thus far).

What is the value of a human life?

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