Remind me not to book any flights on the same airline that you use 
Don’t primates, like monkeys, gorillas, chimps, and so on mourn the loss of another?
Huh? Who said we aren’t superior to plants?
With the whole humans vs. animals thing, I don’t think it is possible to say “Humans are better than animals” or “Animals are better than humans.” It depends on the individual creature. For an example, I’m going to create a scenario:
Say I am on a sinking ship. I can only save one creature, and the other one will definately die.
If the two other creatures are a terrible human and a cat, I am going to save the kitten, whereas others might save the human just cause he’s human.
If the two are a nice human and a mean, nasty cat, I am going to save the human.
Now, say that both are equally nice/mean. I would save whichever one I thought I had the best chance of saving. I hate to say it, but I would probably go for the human simply because it is human nature to save our own kind.
Trust me, I’m the last person you want to be stuck in a lifeboat with. (I will be the last person you are stuck in a lifeboat with, if you get my meaning.)
www.mrlizard.com
Remind me to start killing all the cats and dogs if my boat starts sinking.
- No
- No
- Killing? Yes. eating? No.
Was alluded to earlier. My life is as valuable as the degree of difficulty you have in taking it away from me. The world in retrospect might think that Einstein was worth more over all but to me, mine is worth the most because I make it that way. You think not, try and take it.
I may chose to die for you…
But I’ll really try HARD not to die because of you.
IMO, willingness to die is not to be lauded.
Willingness to live is the real measure.
:::::::Power and the certainty of rightfulness are an appalling combination.::::::
Isn’t it…anthropocentric…to postulate the mere existence of such a thing as “value” outside of ourselves? Not that there isn’t, but, IMO, we have no way of knowing. What we do know, though, is that we as humans assign value to things in our minds, and until someone proves to me that a) the universe is one gigantic mind or b) animals understand the concept of value, I will have to conclude that our unique value exists, umm, uniquely in our minds, as it SHOULD…lest we usher in the Millennium of Boredom, Low Self-Esteem, and Cannibalism.
You’d hate to say that you’d save the human? What is this world comming to? 
If I do get your meaning, wouldn’t you be in the lifeboat alone?
If I do get your meaning, wouldn’t you be in the lifeboat alone?
—I don’t believe human life can be measured in dollars, although some people do it anyway.—
I think the point of those who do need to find a way to put that value in dollars is that everyone does it, at least implicitly. When we make policy choices in the world, we do need some way to compare the cost of human life to the cost of, say, driving less. It is pretty certain that if we all drove much less, many less people would die than do now. When we decide what the right level of safety precaution is, we need some guide as to how much.
If we claim that human life is infinately valuable, compared to other things (that can certainly be measured in dollar amounts), then we are left with the conclusion that any finite amount of risk avoidance or safety precaution is unacceptably low. But almost no one acts as if this were the case, be it their own life or the lives of others. Dollar amounts are certainly open to question, but the reality of there being SOME average dollar amount is much less questionable.
I can kill another living thing, without assigning an absolute value to its life in regards to my own. I kill plants and animals because of the benefit to me (yummy food and clothes), but not because I think it’s their right and proper place to be subjugated by the human race.
I think you’re assuming some sort of ladder of power and right that doesn’t necessarily have to be there. I don’t think humans are more valuable than plants, but that doesn’t mean that I’d eat a person as readily as an apple, and that has nothing to do with “ick” factor.
msmith’s formula and apos’ comments reminded me of an idea for a website I had a long time ago. I wanted to write an algorithm that would allow for a realtime assessment of the cost of human life. People could send in things like the award in a wrongful death lawsuit or how much a car company declined to pay for a feature that would have saved lives and the site would automatically update so you could watch the monetary value of human life actually fall before your very eyes. The point being that, like Apos said, everyone thinks its wrong to put money before life but eveybody does it anyway. Maybe if people were a little more aware of it they would think twice before doing it.
—Maybe if people were a little more aware of it they would think twice before doing it.—
I don’t think it’s wrong to do it, at all. But I definately think it’s wrong to do it without thinking hard about the issue. 
In what ways are plants equal to us?
Rabid Lamb got there first, but I’ll reiterate my question anyway:
What do you mean by “value”?
The word “valuable” seems waaaay out of context here.
Not to mention the fact that “value” is entirely user-specific. The value to me of something will be different to the value to you. I value my immediate family, friends and pets highly because they increase the “happiness quotient” (or utility, to give it its proper name) in my life. However since you don’t know them, their value to you is much smaller than the value of your family and friends.
By this definition, I do generally value humans more highly than animals, to the extent that the loss of their life will emotionally affect me more greatly. However since this is a subjective idea, one cannot extrapolate to the universal idea that humans are more “valuable” per se
pan
When I say value, I mean in the grand scheam of things.
I think you’re missing my point Joel.
I don’t say that plants are “equal” to us either. I don’t assign any value terms to them at all. Neither “equal” nor “lower” nor “greater.”
You say you mean value “in the grand scheme of things.” To me “the grand scheme of things” involves the whole operation of existance itself, and in that scheme of things, any “thing” has such little value that it’s all on equal footing.
As others have said, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a value system independant of your own perceptions, unless this is a religious debate about whether God (or whomever you believe in) values people more than other living things.