Is one human life worth more than another?

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I wonder if they would have kept Hillary if we offered something similar. I would be good for part of that if they would keep her in Kenya.

Goats, schmoats.

You're talking herds of elephants there.

[sean]

Originally Posted by Master Cthulhu

Is one human life worth more than another?

I think this is one of the questions of life, and after a while of thought on the subject I cannot come up with a conclusion.

What do you think?

I think this question needs to be contextualized. Are we talking in abstract terms or concrete? Is one life worth more than another to a particular person? Of course. Can one life be valued over another as a general principle? No.

Originally Posted by glatt

Yes. My life and the lives of my family and friends are worth more than the lives of complete strangers. Especially strangers who don't hold critical roles in society.

This response from glatt is the intuitive one that occurs to most people, but if we are treating this as a problem of ethics rather than economics I think I agree with the philosopher Peter Singer.

Singer establishes what he calls an 'expanding circle of empathy' as one of the defining elements of human nature. It is natural to care for family, especially immediate family, and the evolutionary underpinnings of this behaviour are obvious. Similarly it's natural to favour compatriots and people with similar ethnic background over aliens, strangers and foreigners. We can easily observe the natural occurrence of xenophobia as well.

But what marks human nature as distinct from other species is progress from instinctive self interest to egalitarian universalism and the ability to feel the discomfort of strangers, of other races, and at some point, of other species. These ideas aren't completely novel, and most Buddhists would recognize them, but Singer has developed them in a rigorous way into a coherent ethical system.

Intuitively, most people judge negatively a person who deprives his or her own children in order to help others. This has actually been established in a number of surveys. But Singer asks quite reasonably, how can parents justify spending more on toys for their children than many families have to spend on the essentials of life? He makes a clear argument that this is unethical.

In other words, he says, it is unethical to value one's own children so much more highly than those of strangers.

I think it's also worth considering what it is that glatt might consider a 'critical role in society'. Would that be the emergency care specialist that revives him after his heart attack? Or the gangsta rapper I'm listening to on my iPod?

Valuing people according to their role in society raises an interesting question about what kind of society we're talking about. Many western cultures have modeled themselves on imperial Rome, a violent, philistine, stratified, slave owning, misogynistic dictatorship. At the same time, we've all observed with mild curiosity the rapid extinction of a wondrous variety of pre-industrial cultures scattered across the globe that, often as not, reflect values of gentleness and communal harmony that Western culture is unlikely to ever be able to comprehend, let alone aspire to.

On top of all this, I think the first question to ask about how we value others is, how do we value ourselves?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sean

I think this question needs to be contextualized. Are we talking in abstract terms or concrete? Is one life worth more than another to a particular person? Of course. Can one life be valued over another as a general principle? No.



This response from glatt is the intuitive one that occurs to most people, but if we are treating this as a problem of ethics rather than economics I think I agree with the philosopher Peter Singer.

Singer establishes what he calls an 'expanding circle of empathy' as one of the defining elements of human nature. It is natural to care for family, especially immediate family, and the evolutionary underpinnings of this behaviour are obvious. Similarly it's natural to favour compatriots and people with similar ethnic background over aliens, strangers and foreigners. We can easily observe the natural occurrence of xenophobia as well.

But what marks human nature as distinct from other species is progress from instinctive self interest to egalitarian universalism and the ability to feel the discomfort of strangers, of other races, and at some point, of other species. These ideas aren't completely novel, and most Buddhists would recognize them, but Singer has developed them in a rigorous way into a coherent ethical system.

Intuitively, most people judge negatively a person who deprives his or her own children in order to help others. This has actually been established in a number of surveys. But Singer asks quite reasonably, how can parents justify spending more on toys for their children than many families have to spend on the essentials of life? He makes a clear argument that this is unethical.

In other words, he says, it is unethical to value one's own children so much more highly than those of strangers.

I think it's also worth considering what it is that glatt might consider a 'critical role in society'. Would that be the emergency care specialist that revives him after his heart attack? Or the gangsta rapper I'm listening to on my iPod?

Valuing people according to their role in society raises an interesting question about what kind of society we're talking about. Many western cultures have modeled themselves on imperial Rome, a violent, philistine, stratified, slave owning, misogynistic dictatorship. At the same time, we've all observed with mild curiosity the rapid extinction of a wondrous variety of pre-industrial cultures scattered across the globe that, often as not, reflect values of gentleness and communal harmony that Western culture is unlikely to ever be able to comprehend, let alone aspire to.

On top of all this, I think the first question to ask about how we value others is, how do we value ourselves?

So how does this all change when you have sexual feelings for little kids? Because you have already admitted to that much, correct? http://www.cellar.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=136

[sean]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

So how does this all change when you have sexual feelings for little kids? Because you have already admitted to that much, correct?

It doesn't change. Would you like to suggest why it would?

Actually, I have some questions for you Mercenary?

Are you homophobic? If so, well, thats pretty much all I need to know.

If not, can you tell me why a kid in a redneck town would expose himself to stigma and violence by choosing to be attracted to men?

Also, could you tell me the difference between volition and experience, or an emotion and an act?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sean

It doesn't change. Would you like to suggest why it would?

No. I was more interested in your thoughts. But you say it is no different if you are a pedophile. I accept that. You should know better than me, that is why I asked.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by sean

I think I agree with the philosopher Peter Singer.

Oh god. And THAT'S pretty much all I need to know.

[sean]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

No. I was more interested in your thoughts. But you say it is no different if you are a pedophile. I accept that. You should know better than me, that is why I asked.

I've already revealed quite a bit about my thoughts. I thought it was fairly obvious that I think a paedophile has no less intrinsic value than anybody else. Did you see my other questions?

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Oh god. And THAT'S pretty much all I need to know.

Care to elaborate?

[smoothmoniker]

Among the many, many problems I have with Singer, he thinks that children younger than 2 and the mentally handicapped and have no inherent value, and can be killed for any reason, including the simple convenience of the caregiver.

Singer is the living reductio ad absurdum of utilitarianism.

[sean]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Among the many, many problems I have with Singer, he thinks that children younger than 2 and the mentally handicapped and have no inherent value, and can be killed for any reason, including the simple convenience of the caregiver.

Singer is the living reductio ad absurdum of utilitarianism.

Well maybe reductio ad absurdum is part of his argument.

Its all very well to grumble at the uncompromising nature of some consequentialist conclusions, but unless you can provide coherent alternatives, you're stuck on the same path.

So what are those alternatives? Something from outer space? Tablets of stone?

[smoothmoniker]

Utilitarianism isn't coherent. It's an absolutely untenable ethical system.

Singer himself doesn't come anywhere close to following the harsh edicts he so cavalierly decrees. He lives on far more than $30,000 a year (he states that unless you donate any income above that to alleviate hunger, you are committing murder), and he didn't manage to put a pillow over his mother's face, even after she had descended into Alzheimer's to the point where she was "no longer a person".

Singer is a joke.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by sean

Well maybe reductio ad absurdum is part of his argument.

I have no idea what that might mean.

[sean]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

I have no idea what that might mean.

It means that Singer the man is not identical with Singer the philosopher. As you pointed out in your other post.

And you still haven't suggested any rational basis for an ethics besides the consequences of acts.

[smoothmoniker]

Sorry man, I don't have the time or the inclination to spew undergrad intro to philosophy notes back and forth.

Singer and others of his ilk get the question wrong. They want to drag a modernist theory of knowledge along with them into a post-modern world, and it just won't work. Ethics isn't rationally derivable from first principles.

Consequentialist Ethics are concerned with an abstract calculus that can be applied universally to all possible acts-of-a-kind. The world doesn't actually work like that, which is why Singer and others don't bother actually trying to LIVE the extreme positions they argue for. What is called for instead is moral wisdom, or virtue.

Put down the Singer (unless, of course, you need to study up for the midterm) and pick up some Alasdair MacIntyre instead. You'll find it a much better reflection of how human beings actually live and move and breathe as moral beings.

[sean]

Gotta love those scots! I'm a big fan of Richard Holloway. But yeah. I can see where you're coming from.

But I think somewhere between 'Virtue' and 'Duty' there's actually room for a humble little concept, verging on the ethological, which is called 'empathy', which to me is something innate, and not entirely unique to humans.

The interesting thing about empathy is that it can be educated, to a large extent by understanding the possibility and extent of harm.

What I can't accept is that there is such a thing as an objective 'knowledge' of the nature of virtue, which seems to be what Aristotle and other supernaturalists want us to believe.

[DanaC]

I am really not much for philosphy or philosophers. I prefer something more *thinks* nailed down: hence I am an historian not a philosopher :P

That said, i think Singer has some interesting things to say. Some worrying ones too, but some of it is genuinely intriguing. I don;t think he is under any obligation to live by his philosphy and I get the distinct impression that he has simply followed his ethical philosphy to their logical conclusion in many instances. That's his task, as a philospher/ethicist: to set the parameters of his theory and then follow them out where they go to. It is no more uncomfortable than many other ethical/philosphical theories, once you track them to their logical conclusions. Such theories are by their nature, artificial: the human factor will bugger up the best and worst of theories once an attempt is made to live by them.

Gah. Philosophers. Historians are way more fun