I’m against the concept of dehumanization. There is no point at which someone is so “bad” that they cease to be human, or deserve to be punished in cruel ways, or killed. Historically, dehumanization has been used against oppressed peoples and I feel it’s a slippery slope. In addition to that, though, I believe my own humanity prohibits me from supporting such things. If someone refuses to abide by the social contract, I am absolutely ok with isolating that person and keeping them from inflicting harm on others (prison), but I am completely against the death penalty or (even worse) things like prison rape and human rights violations in prison. That these things occur in our “civilized” society is shameful, and they are allowed to continue because of the dehumanization of criminals.
When I read of the worst abuses that occur in our prisons, I have to conclude that the jailers are no better than the inmates. In fact, in many cases, they are far worse. And, again, I think people overlook it because there’s a widespread belief that “some people, once they go past a certain tipping point on the Evil Scale, forfeit their rights to be considered a human and are thought of more as wastes of oxygen.” That, to me, is evil, and unlike a single criminal, it indicts our whole society.
My own life has infinite value. My boyfriend’s life has infinite value, plus one. Everyone else is below us but equal (although some are more equal than others).
I actually ran into a federal valuation of life a few years ago. I can’t remember which grant we were applying for at the time, but it was safety related. We had to calculate the B/C (Benefit to cost ratio), and got to list a bit over two million dollars of benefit for every hypothetical life saved. That’s more than a few nickels.
(The project included replacing a couple of intersections with a long overpass. No intersection = no crashes. We also got fractional lives due to the improvement in air quality because: no intersection = no idling time = better air quality = less lung damage = fewer months/years whittled off of lives.
We didn’t get the grant. So somewhere there was a project with a higher calculated B/C.)
My life is no more valuable than anyone else.
My ability to prevent you from taking it means you die if you try to make me die.
Society/God/people/nature, or whatever has decided that random killing for no apparent reason is bad.
So if I do that I do not consider that I should be allowed to live or ever be free. Not cost effective to change me. Not talking money, talking my time if I am not the killer. So if I am the killer, I understand that I will be treated thus.
If I am too damaged to understand this, then I am too damaged to be worth even trying to fix.
A good friend of mine was killed when some junkie who needed money to buy crack broke into his home. My friend surprised him by actually being home at the time, and the aforementioned crack junkie stabbed and killed my friend, all for a toolbox full of tools which he then sold to buy crack. (That junkie happens to now be rotting in jail, fwiw)
In a lot of these arguments, folks seem to be comparing the value of things stolen vs. the value of a human life, as if saying “here, just take the stuff and go” will cause the thief to just leave without doing any more harm. In reality, the thief may just panic, or they may be the type of person who has decided that he/she doesn’t want to leave any witnesses behind. It’s not a case of comparing the value of stuff to a human life. The reality is that if someone breaks into your home and you happen to end up in the same room with them, it could very easily be a kill or be killed situation. Some thieves will just run if caught. Some won’t. In the heat of the moment, you have no way of knowing which type of thief you face.
I have a wife and kids. If someone breaks into my house, I am not about to let them kill any member of my family. I will do what I have to in order to defend myself and my family. I don’t want to take a life. I pray that I never have to take a life. I value life very highly. But if I have to, I will kill an intruder in my house and I won’t think twice about it. It has nothing at all to do with the value of a life and everything to do with simple self defense. Kill or be killed.
I would only maim or kill someone if I felt my child’s or her parents’ lives were in danger. My property is insured, and even my family heirlooms are replaceable. They are just things.
Some people may feel they have improved their safety by exterminating a worthless criminal. Maybe. But I’d be irreversibly ashamed and inconsolable each time I thought of a dead criminal’s survivors. His/her mother. Father. Children and spouse. His best friends from grade school. The friend she saved from drowning at camp. I can’t separate a thug from the people who care about him/her. No matter how morally bankrupt or addicted a criminal is, there is a network of people who will be permanently wounded if he or she is killed. Don’t the survivors deserve any consideration?
If someone broke in my house while I was home, I would try to hide or stay away from them. If a confrontation was inevitable, I would defend myself as hard as I could, including killing the intruder if possible. I believe in self-defense, but my stuff isn’t my self.
Mentioning it is hardly “whining”. And I mentioned it because I wanted to make it clear that my views on the value of human life are not based on any calculus of “souls”
I’ve never had to deal with a home invasion type situation, but I’m very sure that I wouldn’t have a single thought for the well being of an intruder. My ONLY concern would be my well being and that would be a function of proximity. If they’re close enough to hurt me, I’m not going to do a metaphysical analysis of the situation. I’m going to act on instinct, whatever the fuck that happens to mean in my twisted little mind at the time. Hopefully that would be tempered with some thought given to possible civil and criminal liability, but those are definitely NOT going to be my main concerns. Maybe if after the dust settles and I’m having one of my 3 or 4 weekly smokes, I’ll think about the perp, but I’m doubtful.
Assuming you mean in a western democratic country, a persons value is dependent on the politics of the protagonist ie a collection of cells is of supreme value to the rabid anti abortionist, while a person is of zero value to someone that wants to kill them for whatever reason.
Strangely, rabid anti abortionists are often fanatical supporters of the death penalty, which seems somewhat contradictory to me.
Like George Carlin once said, in fact there is no “sanctity of life” since there is and has always been killing, “life is sacred” is something people came up with because they cared about making it so* they *would not be killed.
In reality, our societies define not so much the “value of life” in criminal law, but rather the circumstances wherein killing humans through deliberate action (which the law presumes may happen) is or is not justified and what should the consequences be. Society calls it justified in self-defense, as part of a lawful execution, among combatants in a battlefield, etc.; when it’s UNjustified it’s called, depending on the circumstances, murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide, genocide, etc.
Like I said in one of the other threads, what can sometimes grate a little is the perceptional difference between saying “I had to do what I had to do” and saying “The bastard had it coming, I’ll sleep like a baby”. Some people will accuse those willing to use deadly force of bloodthirst and vengefulness, of cold-bloodedness at best. Others at the opposite end will accuse the first group of being morally weak, having had too easy a life, or even of not knowing what it’s like to care for and love someone.
The loved ones and kids of a murdered person suffered harm, but it’s as nothing to the harm suffered by the murdered person themselves. It’s not that the harm doesn’t exist, it’s that it’s dwarfed
The kids of a murderer or thief probably suffer when the criminal is put in jail too. We don’t let that stop us though, nor should we.