# How valuable is human life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2002, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994 "2002-10-05T20:17:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994/61 "2002-10-12T20:05:52Z")
A tragedy is a literary work in which a character is brought to ruin due to a moral weakness. Not just anything sad. Nitpicking aside; Cute rebuttal, however I used an example to express my _argument_. Since you deign to ignore it and the point I made with it, I will asume the point is my favor. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994/62 "2002-10-12T20:34:25Z")
—A tragedy is a literary work in which a character is brought to ruin due to a moral weakness.— Ah, so you were just being a pain in the ass, rather than making any sort of substantive point? Everyone else here seems to know what is meant by “tragedy” in the colloquial sense (as opposed to Tragedy in the Greek drama sense): what’s your problem? —Cute rebuttal, however I used an example to express my argument.— You offered absolutely nothing to suggest that we should guage worth any differently than I said. Your “example” consisted of imagining a certain thing to be true that not everyone even agrees is true: but one can prove anything with such an arguement. What if, when you shoot someone, they didn’t die, and it actually felt really good? Then shooting people would be okay! Bah. Then you had fun telling other people what they think (and why they value) with, convieniently enough, no input from them, then you whine about a lack of “objective” thinking! Look, if you are going to make a case for an alternative to the view I presented, you are going to have to do so by stating your own assumptions. I stated mine. I don’t think there is a “right” set of assumptions in this case: but there is a demand for clarity. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2002, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994/63 "2002-10-13T19:16:54Z")
I once heard human “superiority” expressed as our ability to rise above basic instincts, with the example of: If you threatened a baby animal, that animal’s mother or parent/s would automatically go after you and perhaps kill you. People supposedly can overcome such circumstances. I’d like to see an example of that… in fact I’d argue the contrary - we as a species tent to be more vengeful than any others I can think of. If a starving cougar so much as stalks one of our children, we’ll go kill every big cat within a 5-mile radius. I think any animal (ourselves included) places in order of value: a) themselves b) their partner/babies c) their local community or pack d) their breed or kind A and B may be interchangable, but very few creatures or individuals would stray far from something like this. I’ll save myself from the lion chasing the gazelle across the plains before I’d ever try and save it… probably never; and it’ll alert it’s baby and herd to a predator without giving a damn about me. I value my hide over most/all other creatures, and they do the same for their own. Since value (what ever you want to describe it as) isn’t universal and you can’t assign it anywhere, you may have to take into account the … um… “opinion” of every organism that places value on life and average it out. Any living thing that’ll try to preserve it’s own life would get a vote, and you can tally up the percentage of all Earth’s living creature’s votes that go for us. Personally I’d think we’d loose the opinion poll to the insects, diseases, and rodents! Anything short of such a universal poll would be subject to bias, and therefore not give you an accurate figure - sorta like asking the question: “what’s more valuable; a painting canvas or a 45 gallon drum of engine oil?” and only posing it to professional artists. Ask the mechanics too and you’ll get a very different spilt on the votes. (of course such an evaluation is impossible, so don’t take any of that too seriously :)) ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994/64 "2002-10-14T12:24:03Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Joel_: > > [A]re you saying that it’s the governments roll to determine when it’s ok to kill or not? > Since the German government in WWII took away the rights of Jews and operated concentration camps, was the killing of the Jews ok since it was government sanctioned? [quote] _Originally posted by me, in the 10-line post he was responding to_ [ul][li]If your morality allows for murder; and [/li] … [li]Neither you nor anyone else - including the victim - places any value on the person’s life[/ul][/li][/quote] Frankly, if you’re not even going to bother reading the words I write when I have explicitly kept it short, sweet and in bullet form then I see no value in debating with you whatsoever. As such I will not (yet again) attempt to explain how the issue of whether it is “OK” to kill is tangential to the issue of the worth of human life. I won’t even bother invoking Godwin’s Law. I will merely give the thread up as pointless. pan ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994/65 "2002-10-14T18:33:25Z")
Ok kabbes, help me understand you then. Since you said that human life has no inherent value… > [@](#): > > The last people who tried to insist that things have “inherent” value were the Communists and they made a right old mess of it. Which I have to disagree with, since it’s the fact that communist governments are usually those of dictators and tyrants that mess things up. That and communism is a provenly flawed economic system. Also, and since you said that morality is subjective, and, in fact, irrelevant to this conversation… > [@](#): > > Where the hell did this “OK to murder somebody” come from? You want the morality thread - turn left out of this one and its the 4th thread along. I thought I already cautioned you not to get them mixed up. and > [@](#): > > In the context of this thread, I will simply say that: > > If your morality allows for murder; and > > There is no law against murder (can anyone say “outrageously silly premise syndrome”?); and > > Neither you nor anyone else - including the victim - places any value on the person’s life > then it would be “OK to murder”. > > But then it wouldn’t really be murder, would it? Because murder is unlawful killing. It would just be killing. And killing in the right circumstance is already legal and, to most people’s minds, perfectly OK. For example self-defence, where you have no choice. Wars. Executions in your country. > > So your whole bizarre shift towards this “murder” thing is entirely misplaced. Then you’re saying that the value of human life is circumstantial, right? That if fluctuates from situation to situation? That if the law says you can kill someone, then it’s acceptable? Ok, this will help me understand you better. I’ll state my beliefs, and you can tell me where you differ. (1) Human life has inherent value. Therefore… (2)It is wrong to kill for any reason other than self defense, or in defense of someone else’s life. (3) Although undesired, war, or other kinds of military action, can be justified if the killing of enemy solders can prevent the loss of many more lives of innocent civilians. Such as Clinton sending in troops to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. This would fall under killing to protect the lives of others. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994/66 "2002-10-14T18:33:25Z")
Ok kabbes, help me understand you then. Since you said that human life has no inherent value… > [@](#): > > The last people who tried to insist that things have “inherent” value were the Communists and they made a right old mess of it. Which I have to disagree with, since it’s the fact that communist governments are usually those of dictators and tyrants that mess things up. That and communism is a provenly flawed economic system. Also, and since you said that morality is subjective, and, in fact, irrelevant to this conversation… > [@](#): > > Where the hell did this “OK to murder somebody” come from? You want the morality thread - turn left out of this one and its the 4th thread along. I thought I already cautioned you not to get them mixed up. and > [@](#): > > In the context of this thread, I will simply say that: > > If your morality allows for murder; and > > There is no law against murder (can anyone say “outrageously silly premise syndrome”?); and > > Neither you nor anyone else - including the victim - places any value on the person’s life > then it would be “OK to murder”. > > But then it wouldn’t really be murder, would it? Because murder is unlawful killing. It would just be killing. And killing in the right circumstance is already legal and, to most people’s minds, perfectly OK. For example self-defence, where you have no choice. Wars. Executions in your country. > > So your whole bizarre shift towards this “murder” thing is entirely misplaced. Then you’re saying that the value of human life is circumstantial, right? That if fluctuates from situation to situation? That if the law says you can kill someone, then it’s acceptable? Ok, this will help me understand you better. I’ll state my beliefs, and you can tell me where you differ. (1) Human life has inherent value. Therefore… (2)It is wrong to kill for any reason other than self defense, or in defense of someone else’s life. (3) Although undesired, war, or other kinds of military action, can be justified if the killing of enemy solders can prevent the loss of many more lives of innocent civilians. Such as Clinton sending in troops to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. This would fall under killing to protect the lives of others. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valuable-is-human-life/130994.md?page=3)