Why does human life hold value??

Great Debates
21

Yeah, but are we smarter than other animals? I mean, look at your average housecat, or dog. While the humans are out working, stressing over bills, doing the grocery shopping, and learning to blow each other up, the pets are lolling around all day napping and playing and waiting for someone to serve them dinner and clean up their messes for them. I know which one seems like a smarter way to live to me.

I’ve often wondered what exactly it is that makes humans so much more special than any other species. I mean, if you believe the bible, every living being is one of God’s unique creations. That makes all of us God’s children, even the furry ones, right?

I don’t buy the religious thing, and I don’t buy the intelligence thing. If you make the test up yourself, and skew it toward your own skills and preferences, of course you’re going to outscore everyone else. All those tests prove is that we’re different, not necessarily better.

At any rate, there’s something else that I’ve always wondered about that’s at least tangentially related to the topic. Let’s just accept for the moment that human life is inherently way more valuable than other forms of life, and as such must be treated with reverence and respect. Where does that leave us on the euthanasia question?

If I have a 14 year old dog who’s incontinent, unable to keep food down, unable to move around on her own, and in horrible pain, it’s the humane thing to put her to sleep, right? It’s a kindness, the best thing for her, cruel to let her suffer, all that stuff. So what about Great Aunt Tille, who’s 98, has stomach cancer with bone mets, and can’t keep enough pain medicine in her to even be tolerable? Is it a kindness to give her the pentothal, or do we have to protect the sanctity of life?

If Aunt Tillie’s life is so much more valuable than the dog’s, wouldn’t we value her happiness and well-being more than Fido’s? Shouldn’t we do the kindness to Tillie, and let the dog suffer? Or am I missing something here?

22

To Greck,

Of course it would have been an hinderance, but that does not devalue its life. Nor does it mean that we would not have loved it. We would have made the necessary accomodations to support our child, and in fact were attempting to prepare for it just the same.

Thanks Meatros,

By the way, we are now in our ninth month with what will be our first born!!!

but endangered or not, the lives of those animals have a higher value than humans do, otherwise, it would not be illegal.

And to Apos,

But it is valued more, regardless of the reason. However, that does help answer the question that Burner asked.

It is also only relatively recently that we created the nuclear weapon to kill even more humans. Does that make it an improvement? (As far as ending that war, it was.)

23

originaly by royjwood

I dont neccessarily place animals as an equal or better, but I dont think peoples lives are so special just because they are people. Lets take murder for an example. Why is murder considered a worse crime then rape or robbery? The dead dont have nightmares like rape victims do.

24

Because rape victims can heal. Robbery victims can regain wealth. Murder robs a human being of everything he is and everything he might become.

25

Actually, I think that rape is much worse than murder…

with murder it is over with the death of the victim (at least fo rthe victim, th efamily will now have to suffer, too)

with rape, the victim is forced to live with the emotional scars for the rest of their life.

But murder is robbery of the worst kind, in that you have stolen from that person what is most valuable to them…their life.

For humans, as opposed to animals, our sense of being is far more advanced than any animal. However, the Porpoise / Dolphins, horses and dogs, have been known to risk their own lives in the defence of their human “masters”. And that is a significant act, that many humans are afraid of taking.

But that aside, no other animal has the intellect, the cognitive skills, the interactive skills, and the “humanitarian” nature that humans possess.

I do not support the free killing of animals for sport, though.

I was taught that animals should only be killed:

  1. in the defense of human life, or lively-hood.

  2. in support of life (but not lively-hood), i.e. food, clothing.

All animals have a specific place in the environment, to kill them for sport places in jeapordy the environment. I also doubt the sanity of one who can kil anything just for fun…after all, if they have no respect for animal life, how easy would it be for them to kill humans, too?

26

It’s about potential. Past, present, and future of an individual human life. No, I am not going to give examples. Use your imagination and figure out why a deer’s potential is not the same as a humans in most circumstances. And if it the individual deer does have potential, why would we hold value of that specific deer’s life?

these kind of inane questions are not a thaught provoking debate. If you ask a child why we value a human life, they would give you the same answer. Maybe in different words. But I gurantee you they would say something along the lines of what they can do or have done. It doesn’t take an intellectual to figure it out.

27

I have known women who were raped. Without minimizing their suffering in any way, I can categorically state that each of them found life after rape to be preferable to death. I see no compelling reason why one should adopt “duration of suffering” as the most important measure of a crime.

28

Bear with me, this is bound to be long-winded and full of hypotheticals… and is all IMHO

To me, this statement:

ties it up quite well.

The next child that is conceived might have the knowledge to cure cancer. Or HIV/AIDS. They might be the key to achieving world peace. Or find other life in the universe. Another Einstein.

That same child might also turn out to be another Hitler.

But then again, that child might simply be the one who shows another child a small kindness on the playground one day. The other child, remembering the good that was done to him, grows up to become the president whose answer to everything is NOT war. Or the doctor that finds the cure for Alzheimers.
Had the first child ridiculed the other for some other equally small reason, that child may then grow up to hate himself and everyone around him.

Why does human life hold value??

Maybe it’s because of the possibilities we are born with and carry with ourselves though out our lives. Good and Bad.

The abortion issue aside, what if, because of everyday circumstances, we do not live past the age of 5, or 15, or 30. Our loved ones will grieve for us regardless of our age. But, what if, the day before you died, you fulfilled that which you were destined to do, and assume for a moment that your loved ones knew there was a specific purpose in your life, which you were born to accomplish, and that you had accomplished it shortly before your death. Would it make your death easier to bear? Emotionally? Physically? Financially?

Maybe, maybe not.

Value is also not strictly defined.

Emotionally define the value of the loss of a child.

Financially define the loss of a spouse.

Physically define the loss of a parent.

Then define the value of each depending on how you lost them.

There may be a factual answer to this question, but I don’t think value is restricted to the human species.

Syl

29

Well, try this on for size:
I wish to keep being alive.
It is easier for me to be alive if other people are alive (to cook, clean, and service me.)
Therefore, it is in my interests to keep other people alive.

Not hard.

30

All moralizing aside, human life is cheap.

Around this earth, people are starving. Our nation, and others, could feed them, but it would mean giving up a substantial part of our wealth, which we’re not willing to do. We may cringe when we see starving babies on the television, but we really don’t care enough to do much about it.

We’re willing to keep others in indescribable conditions, working for slave wages in order to have cheap tennis shoes.

Corporations would rather let people die than allow them to buy cheap drugs. We don’t really have too much of a problem with that.

(When it comes to the corporate world, remember the Ford Pinto story: it was cheaper to pay off the families of those who burned to death than to repair the cars.)

Ethnic wars occur all the time, in which people are slaughtered because they’re the wrong tribe, or the wrong religion, but we don’t get involved unless there’s a pressing economic interest.

In a war, innocent civilians are killed, but we don’t really mind, because that’s the nature of war.

A foreign dictator may kill his people, and we’ll talk about how terrible it is, but war is expensive and we’re just not that interested.

Human life has always been cheap. I’m not criticizing our way of life, I’m just pointing out some things, and reserving judgement for another thread.

31

Does human life have value?

I guess the question is unanswerable, since we don’t know why human life exists in the first place.

Human life has value because we create value in as much as we create meaning. Everything has meaning and therefore everything has value in its meaning, and as meaning.

Could one have meaning in their live but commit suicide?

Well suicide has meaning so I guess it’s a question of whether the meaning in one’s life has value. All meaning has value in as much as it is “meaning”, that is, meaning has value in and of itself.

If the meaning is valueless beyond that then one’s life may be considered meaningless.

If this existence is an accidental phenomena with no creator or god or transcendence and there is no reason why it exists, apart from any reason we might assign it, then human life has no value beyond our own assignments. However I don’t think that that is the case.

Does a lions life have less value then mine? Not according to the lion.

The endowment of the will to live in individuals of all species makes their life of greater value to them in most cases, as one’s will to live takes precedence over the will for others to live, otherwise it wouldn’t be a will to live. Although there are many exceptions.

One’s life has value because the will to live has value. If you had no will to live would your life still have value?

32

—But it is valued more, regardless of the reason.—

No, the argument is flawed.
If I blow up your car, there’s more punishment for me than if I abort a child. That doesn’t mean that anyone thinks that cars have moral interests. The example of the unborn eaglet tries to pretend otherwise in a rather cheap and silly manner. As others have pointed out, perhaps more simply, humans would have to be endangered species for that comparison to make any sense.

—It is also only relatively recently that we created the nuclear weapon to kill even more humans. Does that make it an improvement?—

No. I didn’t make such a inference. My response was simply that how recent some cause is has nothing to do with how legitimate it is.

—It’s about potential. Past, present, and future of an individual human life.—

Don’t agree. It’s about the capacity to have interests at all. Humans have greater capacity, which is why it’s a greater tragedy when someone machine guns a playground than it would be if they machine gunned a herd of cows. Future interests (i.e., interests in expectations) are only relevant to the extent that they are held by beings who have them right now.

33

By what standard do humans have a greater capacity for interests? Most lower animals interests are more relative to their invironments (ie; survival). And I am pretty sure their interests are persued more than ours of typing on message boards, or even feeding children on the other side of the world. As a matter of fact, I would consider our intereests mundane compared to theirs. Example, a house pet’s interest of survival is much less pronounced than a wild animal. Pleasure is a daily interest to them. My cat will run into the kitchen when she hears me getting her food. If I only feed her dry food she acts dissapointed I did not feed her can food. She usually walks away unless I did.

Now, why do we hold more value towards pets than wild animals? Because their interests coincide more towards ours? They do not have a greater capacity than their wild cousins. their priorities have just changed. If I had a wild tiger cub, and raised it the same as my cat, I would imagine I would get the same interests from it as I do my cat. Capacity has nothing to do with it. A mentally handicapped person has no less value than an intellectual when it comes to life. Although it may be a greater loss to lose one, because the potential is more pronounced than the other, the individual life is just as valuable.

34

Your life holds no value at all for me. On the other hand, I believe that my life is priceless. From your point of view, my points are reversed. If I want you to value my life, and refrain from taking it, then I must value, or at least pretend to value, yours, and refrain from taking it. In my view, it is just that simple.

Read The Sea Wolf by Jack London for a discussion on the value of human life.

35

Wolf Larsen at his best. An excerpt from the book which is publicly available online here.

In regards to altruism…

36

—By what standard do humans have a greater capacity for interests?—

We can have all sorts of expectations for the future and others, as well as complex psychological fear, and form especially meaningful social bonds.

—Capacity has nothing to do with it.—

Of course it does. It’s how we generally think about almost all rights I can think of. We don’t give children the right to vote because they can “potentially” be mature enough to vote. We give them that right only when they have the capacity to do so.

—A mentally handicapped person has no less value than an intellectual when it comes to life.—

Every mentally handicapped person I can think of has all the same relevant capacities as other humans. Intelligence doesn’t have much to do with it directly, really.

—Although it may be a greater loss to lose one, because the potential is more pronounced than the other, the individual life is just as valuable.—

You seem to be struggling with your own terminology: if the potential loss is greater, why isn’t the value greater?

37

Apos

I’m not sure I get exactly where you’re coming from. If capacity is what gives humans their value does a persons value decrease as their capacity decreases? Do human newborns have a greater capacity for interests then your garden variety dog?

38

So can/does my cat

We are not talking about rights, but value.

Mentally handicapped include mentally incapacited too.

I am not struggling, just giving an example of how the potential capacity of an individual is not fundamental to the value of a human life. We do not give non-citizens the right to vote either. And we value the potential of the incapacitated for reasonns other than otheir capacities. My cousin is mentally handicapped. She has no less value to her family because she cannot learn to drive a car. Her potentials are boundless.

39

As others have pointed out, people do not assign the same value to everyone’s life. When you read in the newspaper that some civilian hospital was accidentally bombed, you can shake your head and click your tongue, “What a shame.” When you hear your next door neighbor was gunned down taking out the trash you are likely to treat that as more of a tragedy. You knew them, and as someone else said, you could be next, so you want to do something. The fact is that humans form a sense of community.

About animals, sometimes their lives are valued more than humans. I know there are people that wouldn’t mind wiping North Korea off the map. Those same people that wouldn’t think twice about a North Korean dying are heartbroken over the dog that the same North Korean ate for lunch.

40

Our lives are important because we are created by God whom places great love, and caring upon us. If we are loved by God then should we love others as such. All life is sacred.

Love
Leroy