Discussion Do you believe our lives have inherent value?

[restless.dreams]

Do you believe in the intrinsic value/worth/sanctity of human life? Why or why not?

If so, are all lives equally valuable? E.g., is a newborn baby more/less valuable than an adult? Where does our worth come from?

 

[xhelx]

I think life itself has neutral value. Let's say you take two 30 year olds, one is a murderer, the other one is a doctor who has saved dozens of lives. They have both lived the same amount of time, but you would definitely say the murderer's life has less value. If you change the ages, you would still say the same thing, so there is no worth added or taken by the amount of time they have lived. Value is only lost or gained by actions and intentions, so life itself has no value.
I think it's generally thought that children's lives are worth more since they are usually more innocent than adults, and have done much less bad things.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

No, I don't believe that human lives have inherent value. The people who say otherwise just have an inflated sense of ego. The universe is indifferent to humans and will always be

 

[Homo erectus]

The purpose of life is to realize finally that life is meaningless, and to switch off the world, or just humanity, gracefully.

 

[SexyIncél]

Not sure how much I understand value. But let's say value is what causes people to do stuff

Take a society where many lives have negative value. That means people try to kill or get rid of them somehow; maybe lock them in cages

That society may have elites: who are treated as much more valuable than most. Those of little value are mostly ignored or treated with contempt, like wallpaper

So I think the value of our lives is subjective. Since there's different value systems. Obviously, I have my preferences...

 

[theboy]

Life is meaningless. You give meaning to your life

 

[sserafim]

No, I don't believe that human lives have inherent value. There's nothing valuable about human life in my opinion. It just happened. Life itself is meaningless, there's really no point why we're here on this earth. Also what do you define as "value"? Valuable to who and in what context? I guess your life could be argued to have value under capitalism though because you exist to be a slave to the system and for people to profit off of you.

 

[DarkRange55]

Do *I* as an individual believe that?
Or are you asking objectively if life and different individuals are more valuable?

 

[Pluto]

All lives are equal, but some are more equal than others.

 

[DarkRange55]

Do you believe in the intrinsic value/worth/sanctity of human life? Why or why not?

Depends on how far you push "intrinsic".

To me, yes, I value complexity, but to an asteroid, no (and not even to all people).

If so, are all lives equally valuable? E.g., is a newborn baby more/less valuable than an adult? Where does our worth come from?

To me? No, I value humanity more than any one human, and some humans contribute more to the survival of humanity.

 

[sserafim]

Do you believe in the intrinsic value/worth/sanctity of human life? Why or why not?

Depends on how far you push "intrinsic".

To me, yes, I value complexity, but to an asteroid, no (and not even to all people).

If so, are all lives equally valuable? E.g., is a newborn baby more/less valuable than an adult? Where does our worth come from?

To me? No, I value humanity more than any one human, and some humans contribute more to the survival of humanity.

What do you think about this quote?

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."

 

[SexyIncél]

I guess your life could be argued to have value under capitalism though because you exist to be a slave to the system and for people to profit off of you.

I wish. Under wageslavery, your value's determined by the market:

In traditional society like the feudal system, people had a certain place, and they had certain rights-in fact, they had what was called at the time a "right to live." I mean,under feudalism it may have been a lousy right, but nevertheless people were assumed to have natural entitlement for survival. But with the rise of what we call capitalism, the right had to be destroyed: people had to have it knocked out of their heads that they had any automatic "right to live" beyond what they could win for themselves on the labor market.

And there's a "reserve army of the unemployed" — near-zero unemployment freaks out elites because it kills their bargaining power. No one fears getting fired. Unemployment's apparently unique to wageslavery — idle hands not offered work, even though there's lots to do & they want to

 

[restless.dreams]

Do *I* as an individual believe that?
Or are you asking objectively if life and different individuals are more valuable?

I'm just asking what you believe. I'm not sure if it's something that can be objectively proven, it's more of a philosophical question :)

 

[sserafim]

What do you think about this quote?

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."

So, what do you think? @DarkRange55

 

[DarkRange55]

So, what do you think? @DarkRange55

I suppose I am the arbiter of all things

What do you think @SmallKoy?

 

[SmallKoy]

I suppose I am the arbiter of all things

What do you think @SmallKoy?

I see two perspectives.

If you are religious, you might say that humans do have inherent value. I don't personally consider myself to be religious. However, I like to think of this quote: "The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."

Which you may know from Homer's Iliad. I'm not trying to say that I would live by this quote, or that this is something I necessarily believe in, but I think that it is something to think about. I think most people here would dislike this idea, but I think it's nice to think about. That life is inherently beautiful. I like that idea.

It's hard to say if I truly think that life has inherent meaning, I would *like* to say yes. I did vote yes. Though, I don't necessarily know that it does. I don't really believe my own life has meaning, but I do believe others lives have meaning.

So yes and no. I'm divided.

 

[SexyIncél]

I'm just asking what you believe. I'm not sure if it's something that can be objectively proven, it's more of a philosophical question :)

I think we're concerned about 2 basic entities that can value humans: individuals & social structures

Me individually? When you look at my irl actions, I try to give a baseline of courteousness to anyone I meet. Inherently valuable by default (as far as basic courtesy goes). Of course, if they just punched a child & took her lollipop, they uncover themselves as someone whose value to me drops below zero

In terms of who I dedicate time to, I can't possibly value everyone; otherwise I couldn't act. But I do try

In terms of social structures... I think many should treat people as inherently valuable participants. Like systems that distribute food & shelter. There's other structures that shouldn't treat everyone as valuable. For example, maybe you have a teddybear, and only you have value in terms of access to it

"Value" is a mental ideal; of course the real-world's messier. Same with computers. They approximate ideals, but in the real world aren't perfectly reliable. So with the random axe murderer... we make exceptions & corner cases. Maybe you think he should be treated as having value, but limit his movement to a certain area where he can't chop people up

 

[ThymeToLeave]

I wish. Under wageslavery, your value's determined by the market:


And there's a "reserve army of the unemployed" — near-zero unemployment freaks out elites because it kills their bargaining power. No one fears getting fired. Unemployment's apparently unique to wageslavery — idle hands not offered work, even though there's lots to do & they want to

Wow. That quote about capitalism ending the "right to life" enjoyed under feudalism is interesting. I never thought I'd see anything that offered a meaningful endorsement of feudalism over capitalism!

To answer the topic question, I do think our lives have inherent value because I am the kind of mostly-useless lazy degen who would apparently be accommodated under feudalism but is rejected under capitalism. I wonder if socialism/anarchism have room for the mostly-useless lazy degen the way feudalism apparently did.

 

[SexyIncél]

I wonder if socialism/anarchism have room for the mostly-useless lazy degen the way feudalism apparently did.

Likely. There's discussion of this in the anarchist lit

For example, Chomsky mentions that un-alienated work would likely lead to fewer people feeling unmotivated:

The reason is that it has always been assumed that there is a substantial body of wage slaves who will do it simply because otherwise they'll starve. However, if human intelligence is turned to the question of how to make the necessary work of the society itself meaningful, we don't know what the answer will be. My guess is that a fair amount of it can be made entirely tolerable.

It's a mistake to think that even back-breaking physical labor is necessarily onerous. Many people, myself included, do it for relaxation. Well, recently, for example, I got it into my head to plant thirty-four trees in a meadow behind the house, on the State Conservation Commission, which means I had to dig thirty-four holes in the sand. You know, for me, and what I do with my time mostly, that's pretty hard work, but I have to admit I enjoyed it. I wouldn't have enjoyed it if I'd had work norms, if I'd had an overseer, and if I'd been ordered to do it at a certain moment, and so on. On the other hand, if it's a task taken on just out of interest, fine, that can be done. And that's without any technology, without any thought given to how to design the work, and so on.

Furthermore, it's plausible that free people would use tech to reduce the amount of necessary work that no one enjoys. And then share the remaining residue of shit-work equally

He does mention that there may still remain fundamentally lazy people who still won't wanna do it. But others may just see them as odd pathological cases — humans generally like being active. If so, then they can simply be provided for, like any non-ablebodied person. They can have their couch, popcorn & internet

If they're not few, then ok, we'll have to figure out wtf the problem is & experiment

Participatory Economics also considers this. One possible principle in an economy is compassion:

Of course this is where another norm comes in, norm four: payment according to need. But as attractive as norm four is, it is a norm in a different category from the other three. It is not really a candidate for a definition of economic justice. Instead, it expresses a value beyond equity or justice that we aspire to and implement when possible and desirable. It is one thing for an economy to be equitable, fair, and just. It is another thing for an economy to be compassionate. A just economy is not the last word in morally desirable economics. Besides striving for economic justice, we desire compassion as well. Thus we have our equity value, norm three, and beyond economic justice, we have our compassion, to be applied via norm four where appropriate such as in cases of illness, catastrophe, incapacity, and so on. And those are our aspirations for income.

Then it needs to be worked out, to what extent some some improved society implements this compassion principle

 

[Ulrich]

Value is a human concept, so if you eliminate all life then value becomes meaningless. But of course, that hasn't happened yet.

 

[restless.dreams]

Really interesting perspectives here. I tend to agree with @ijustwishtodie and others that human lives don't matter at all to the universe. As @sserafim said, there's no plan or purpose for us being here -- we just happened. On the other hand, the odds of intelligent life on any given planet are probably astronomical, and in that sense, it's kind of extraordinary that we're all here right now.

From a socioeconomic perspective, I think capitalism is a pretty heartless system. I don't believe our value should be determined by how much profit we generate.

Personally, I believe that human lives do have inherent value, but it's difficult for me to articulate why, which is why I created this thread. To me, it's not something that can be quantified exactly, but I do place more value on innocent lives and those that are close to me. If I were in a position to save someone's life, I would do it. I would probably save a baby before an adult because, as @xhelx mentioned, the baby did nothing wrong.

I'm pro-choice with regard to suicide and euthanasia because I think a person's individual autonomy outweighs the value of their life to other people. To me, the value of life connotes the right to life, which also includes the right to die.