Is the value of human life on sliding scale?

Should all human life be treated equally or not? Take into consideration the following comparisons:

  • A criminal vs. a non-criminal
  • A baby vs. a grown man/woman
  • A gravely sick or disabled person vs. a healthy person
  • A fellow countryman vs. a foreigner
  • A family member vs. a stranger

In each case, does one person have a more valuable life to you than the other? If so, how can we justify this? Aren’t we in philosophical/spiritual trouble if the moral grey area is too large and easily negotiable? Isn’t it hypocritical to value one life over another? What is/are the deciding qualifier(s) when comparing the value of two lives?

I’m going to say yes, it should.

But I have to say this is just about impossible to answer without a context for it. If we’re not going to treat everyone equally, why are we making these decisions? If, to pull an example from my ass, I’m stranded with a bunch of people on a desert island with very limited food, yes, it’s conceivable you might have to make choices like this. It might make sense in that context to not feed someone who was very elderly or unhealthy, because that person would be a greater-than-average drain on our resources and wouldn’t be able to contribute as much as a healthy person. Which is not to say I could make that call myself.

To answer one thing specifically, no, it’s not hypocritical. Hypocrisy is “professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess.” I don’t think that applies to this question. Maybe you meant something else?

Clearly, people don’t treat everyone the same way. It’s natural (and biologically-based, I imagine) to treat your family and those close to you differently than you would treat a stranger. That’s not to say one life is more valuable than the other, though if you had to save a family member or a stranger I think most people would save the family member.

I would say yes, at least to the point that a criminal who has committed murder has forfeit their life.

In past years, I’ve changed my opinion to be against the death penalty though, but only because I think the system makes too many mistakes, not because I think it’s wrong for the state to take the life of murderers.

So I guess my view is that morally it’s OK for murderers to out to death, so their lives are worth less than others. But I don’t trust the system anymore to actually carry this out.

that should be “So I guess my view is that morally it’s OK for murderers to be put to death”

In case my post wasn’t clear, what I was saying “yes, it should” to was the OP’s first question (as opposed to the thread title, that wouldn’t make sense). So

Q: “Should all human life be treated equally or not?”
My A: Yes, it should be.

Heh, I meant the opposite; yes, it is a sliding scale IMO, in the case of a murderer.

In this case, it could be argued a baby’s life is more valuable because there is, potentially, so much more of it yet to come.

Well, the way tort law is set up if you are going to kill someone you should kill a poor person or a baby. It is also better to kill someone than to severely injure them.

“Should all human life be treated equally?” I think this question misses the mark.
All human life should be respected. What would be respectful and appropriate in one case, may not be respectful and appropriate in another. The range of human choices is so large that you can’t treat people in different situations exactly the same. That would be madness.

If we’re really going to be honest, then none of us really think that all human life is equal. We construct all kinds of intutive protocols for whose lives are more important than others, and it’s not just criminals, it extends to events like wars as well. Most people think that the lives of their own soldiers are more important than the lives of the other soldiers, or even the other civilians.

I think there’s an instinctive, concentric valuation of lives which most of us construct, putting ourselves at the epicenter and then rating the value of the lives of others based on how close they are to us personally. We have ME at the center, then a circle of family, children, spouses, etc. Then we have a circle of friends and less intimate family, etc. The circles go on and on and vary somewhat from individual to individual, but most people will place some preferntial value on countrymen, coreligionists, ethnicity, etc. Some criteria are more rational than others but they exist.

I think that this is a subconcious process. We don’t even realize we’re doing it, but if we’re perfectly frank about it, how many of us can sincerely say that we do not make any distinctions whatever in how much we value the lives of others (even excluding the serial killers and the despots)?

How many of us would say that the life of nice Mr. Johnson across the street is as important to us as the lives of our children?

I don’t know that there’s necessarily anything wrong with this, it seems hardwired, but I don’t think anyone really thinks that all human life is equal, not if they’re pushed. They will make choices and sometimes those choices will have nothing to do with moral criteria but with selfish ones.

I agree with Diogenes the Cynic.

I know with me personally, that if I had to make a choice between the lives of my daughter and wife or, say the entire population of China, then I don’t think I would feel too bad about my decision to trade the lives of over a billion with just two. The only true value of human life, IMHO, is what each individual places on it and it is different for each person.

Fundamentally then, is racial bigotry the same thing as favoring your family over another’s? Both are hard wired and unconscious and both seem irrational when viewed objectively. That’s what I meant by hypocritical. Us enlightened say we’re not bigots, but is that really possible? If it’s not possible and equality is always viewed from a personal perspective, then what are we striving for, exactly?

I strive to bring my instincts and passions under my control, to over-rule the desires of my selfish heart and do what I know to be right instead. I have always thought that racisim and other forms of bigotry are entirely natural behaviors, but that we, as rational human beings, are able to choose whether or not we allow them expression in our lives. As a white South African, I am acutely aware of my own propensity for racist attitudes because of the twisted upbringing that I had, and work particularly hard at ensuring that my words/actions are not swayed or influenced by my knee-jerk instincts.

Grim

(bolding mine)

Sure they do. But that’s different from saying they have more inherent value. You may drive a more valuable car than I, but mine is more valuable to me because I have the keys to it (and the right and ability to drive it).

Some people have more value to me than others, but moral decision-making should go beyond just acting in my own personal best interest. The life of my own [hypothetical] child may be more valuable to me than the life of your child, but I am not justified in killing your child to get the vital organs that my child needs to live.

As for whether some human lives have more inherent value than others—or even any inherent value at all—this, it seems to me, is something you have to either take as an axiom, or derive from religious principles (such as that God loves all or all are made in God’s image). And if you’re going to take a religious perspective, you have to distinguish between the worth of a person’s earthly life and that of their eternal soul.