I hate to say it, Joel, but this is no answer. What value “in the grand scheme of things”? There is no value in the grand scheme of things because value is an entirely subjective concept. The last people who tried to insist that things have “inherent” value were the Communists and they made a right old mess of it.
Object X can only have value in the context of person Y desiring object X in some way. If object X is entirely unloved then it doesn’t matter what it happens to be - it has no value. If Person Y desires object X but Person Z does not then it has value to Person Y but not to Person Z. There is no objective measure of its value.
Joel, you hit the crux of the matter right here. It is certainly true that a hungry predator larger than I am would have absolutely no compunction about eating ME. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We humans didn’t invent the food chain, we just have to live within it. Blame God. I still await the OP’s answer to your most pointed question.
What on earth has personal morality got to do with the “value” of life? A person who chooses not to eat chickens does it because of something which is inherent in that person, not in the chicken.
You’re making me think and question things here. This is good.
I don’t believe it’s wrong for a lion to kill a zebra, and I don’t believe it’s wrong for a human to kill an animal for food.
However, I don’t think it’s right that humans breed animals to be killed for food, and that hectares of forest are destroyed every year to provide land for animals to be bred to be killed for food…
The way meat is priced disgusts me, that we can place a monetary value on meat, per kilo. That it comes packed in plastic, all cut up ready to be cooked.
Everybody is desensitized to it, and… I just don’t think that’s right.
I completely understand where you (and everyone else…) is coming from, and it’s not that I don’t want to admit that I’m wrong… I realise my argument is flawed, and I can’t really explain the reasons why I think this way. But I don’t exactly think I’m wrong, just need to think about stuff a bit more
I think that there are plenty of atheists that believe that our lives are far more valuable than that of plants and animals and minerals. Ok, some people think that the value of human and animal life is equal, but I don’t think that you have to be religious to believe that human life is far more valuable than that of any kind of plant or mineral.
They are to me. No other animal on the planet can make grilled cheese sandwiches. Mmmmm, grilled cheese sandwiches.
Or, to put it on a somewhat more general plane: The odds of my personal survival, and of the survival of my personal genome, are better enhanced by having other humans around than by having, say, hamsters or grasshoppers or sea anemonies around.
So a person has to be desired by somebody else to have any value? Does that mean I can be rude to people when I want if I don’t care what they think? Could I kill somebody if their life meant nothing to me?
I think that I understand what you’re getting at. It’s not the killing of an animal by its predator that you object to, but you see the way that humans do it as sometimes, or mostly, wasteful and inhumane? Is that pretty much the gist of it?
No, a person just has to be desired by somebody to have any value.
That person can, of course, be themselves.
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Does that mean I can be rude to people when I want if I don’t care what they think?
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Well yes. And I’m sure that you would be, if you wanted to be and you truly didn’t care what they thought. There’s no law against being rude.
Well there certainly are laws against this, so no. Whether your own morality tells you that this law is right or not is up to you. And whether you follow the law or not is up to you. Certainly this Washington sniper doesn’t appear to put much value on human life, does he?
Don’t get morality, laws and value mixed up. Your own morality, for example, might dictate “no rudeness”, in which case it is the value you place in yourself - and implicitly in others - that is stopping you being rude. In other words, the very existence of your morality implicitly recognises value in others.
What you don’t seem to be getting is that the problem here is not with the glory - or otherwise - of the human condition. The problem here is with the word “value”. Value only makes sense in the context of somebody to ascribe value. There is no “universal” value.
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.
In the context of this thread, I will simply say that:[ul][li]If your morality allows for murder; and[/li][li]There is no law against murder (can anyone say “outrageously silly premise syndrome”?); and[/li][li]Neither you nor anyone else - including the victim - places any value on the person’s life[/ul]then it would be “OK to murder”.[/li]
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.
Uhm, first, in a discussion about the value of human life, then also discussing morality, is perfectly valid.
And second, are 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?
If you think human life is worth so much more than an animal’s, try killing someone else’s chicken and see where it gets ya. The cost of the future lain eggs and born chickens is pretty damn expensive! now THAT’s a statistician’s wet dream
I think you don’t understand the definition of Tragedy. That is another discussion though.
So a persons worth is measured in how much they have to lose? I would argue with this. If this is fact, and the christians have it right, the death of an animal is even worse than that of a human. If a dog dies, it is gone, forever, where as a human lives on in eternity.
When it comes down to it, humans put value on human life because we are human. People put value on things they love, and they have to love themselves. Dog lovers put alot of value on dogs, some art collectors think art is worth more than human lives and so on.
All flesh is Grass, so says the bible (no, not preaching, I am an athiest), and grass is pretty valueless(not having value, nothing to do with usefullness). For the argument about worth of souls (if you believe in them), supply and demand baby, the more souls there are, the less value they are.
Is somebody that helps advance humanity worth more? From the human perspective, possibly, but that is too subjective. What worth is all of humanity? To a human, a lot. To a race in another galaxy that does not even know we exist, well, life goes on.
I think debates like this really show just how objective people can really be. (not very much, though there are a few people that can)
