How much is a life worth? Judges consider this all the time when they are deciding on damages in lawsuits, but I'm not asking that. Is any life worth more than another? If you believe that there is no point to anything, other than what we choose to think up, then does a life have any value at all? After all, nothing else does.
Yep, a life is worthless, or infinitely valuable - take your pick. Which is to say, it is not something on which a value can be reasonably placed. We might say, "priceless". This includes even the dregs among us, the criminal, the evil, the destructive, the maniacal. I don't approve of what people like Hitler and Stalin did with their lives, but I can't honestly say that their lives were of less value than anyone else's. I don't mean in a historical, biographical sense - I mean their biological, lived lives. That's one reason I'm against capital punishment.
I take a sort of eco-Darwinist view of it all. Wouldn't it be silly to talk about the bubonic plague bacillus being less valuable than the one that grows mold on bread? Plain nonsense - they do different things, is all. Of course, one might have economic value, but again, I'm not thinking in that limited sphere right now. So, in a meadow, we might see roses and weeds, and we might pull out the weeds, and collect the roses for sale, but in that meadow, as opposed to a commercial greenhouse, a 'weed' is as good as a rose. I'd like to see some weeding of our human garden too, but I'm not counting on it. Perhaps better cultivation is the best way.
Human beings are preoccupied with their language, culture, and free will, but I've always felt that we are much more like plants than we would like to think. Would you consider one blade of grass as more valuable than another? They germinate, grow, and die, as do we. They respond to their environment, as do we. They change the environment without 'intending' to, as do we. But we have intentions as well. The question is, how important are they in the scheme of things?
Yep, a life is worthless, or infinitely valuable - take your pick. Which is to say, it is not something on which a value can be reasonably placed. We might say, "priceless". This includes even the dregs among us, the criminal, the evil, the destructive, the maniacal. I don't approve of what people like Hitler and Stalin did with their lives, but I can't honestly say that their lives were of less value than anyone else's. I don't mean in a historical, biographical sense - I mean their biological, lived lives. That's one reason I'm against capital punishment.
I take a sort of eco-Darwinist view of it all. Wouldn't it be silly to talk about the bubonic plague bacillus being less valuable than the one that grows mold on bread? Plain nonsense - they do different things, is all. Of course, one might have economic value, but again, I'm not thinking in that limited sphere right now. So, in a meadow, we might see roses and weeds, and we might pull out the weeds, and collect the roses for sale, but in that meadow, as opposed to a commercial greenhouse, a 'weed' is as good as a rose. I'd like to see some weeding of our human garden too, but I'm not counting on it. Perhaps better cultivation is the best way.
Human beings are preoccupied with their language, culture, and free will, but I've always felt that we are much more like plants than we would like to think. Would you consider one blade of grass as more valuable than another? They germinate, grow, and die, as do we. They respond to their environment, as do we. They change the environment without 'intending' to, as do we. But we have intentions as well. The question is, how important are they in the scheme of things?
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