Justifying the value of human life
Imagine someone comes along and claims they have no respect for the value of human life, (or the value of the lives of certain groups humans). If you disagree, what reasons would you give her that human life has value and/or should be respected?
I believe that most of us would consider this to be wrong, or perhaps pathological. But what reasons do we have to say this?
Im in particular looking for a more secular answer, as I feel most religions do a good job answering this question.
I believe that most of us would consider this to be wrong, or perhaps pathological. But what reasons do we have to say this?
Im in particular looking for a more secular answer, as I feel most religions do a good job answering this question.
Comments (59)
Valuing human life relies upon a presupposition that harming people is wrong. If a person needs reasons for this, perhaps they need psychological help rather than philosophy? We are a social species that seems to be hard wired for empathy and cooperation.
Religion is much more than people's opinion of what god wants. Religious ethics is very different from actual religion. Religion proper is entirely subjective, it is a reality that absolutely exists for the individual, but which is invisible to everyone else. It is hard to talk about actual religion without spilling over into talking about religious culture. But the distinctions are important.
Indeed, there's a whole cosmos of subjectivism built into every aspect of religious life.
Well have to dig our way out of that. One way Ive come to value a person is to recognize her originality. Nothing like her has ever existed, nor ever will, because shes original, one-of-a-kind, and in that sense effectively priceless.
But if they do not even recognize this, then one could point out that most others get the impression persons have moral value. If virtually everyone is getting the visual impression of a sun in the sky but you are not, then the reasonable conclusion to draw is that there is a sun in the sky and that your own visual impressions are failing you on this occasion. That's not always reasonable - for sometimes there's excellent reason to think that it is the faculties of others that are systematically failing - but it's the reasonable default assumption. Likewise, then, with moral impressions (which are just a species of rational impression). If most people get the impression persons have moral value, but you do not share this impression, then the reasonable conclusion to draw - other things being equal - is that other persons have moral value and your own moral impressions are failing you on this occasion.
Of course, if in addition to not getting the impression anyone has any moral value they are also unreasonable, then there's really no reasonable way of persuading them for - by hypothesis - they don't care what they have reason to believe or lack the ability to be able to recognize for more than a second or two that they have reason to believe this or that.
~Hillel the Elder
Quoting Tom Storm
:100:
Jokes aside, I'd say we're not exactly being pampered here - look around and smell the shit! Whoever our creator is, s/he's abandoned us on this deserted island we call Earth and left us to fend for ourselves. Going by our nature - :naughty: - I'd wager we're not gonna be rescued anytime soon. :snicker:
Anyway, value isn't exactly something that seems justifiable objectively i.e. don't expect everyone to go "yes, you're absolutely right!" Speaking from my own experiences which isn't much, I 'd say rarity or uniqueness is what confers value; mathematically, the value of an x is inversely proportional to the probability of encountering x. Are humans rare? Rare enough I'd say - which animal can rollerblade into the path of a semi? :snicker:
It would be such a better world if every human on the planet had this basic opinion and used it towards each human they met until that human displays actions which don't comply with the golden rule of 'treat others as you would have them treat you.' What I also like about the golden rule is that this allows you to insult or fight with others if you feel there is no other choice and you would accept such treatment from others if that is what you dish out. You can treat others badly if they have treated you badly.
I don't mean an 'eye for an eye,' approach either, your response to bad treatment must fall short of this imo.
Water is essential for life, diamonds aren't and yet the former is dirt cheap while the latter burns a hole in your pocket.
Value and Price don't correlate as well as we'd like them to. Perhaps a feature rather than a bug. The takeaway: Costly doesn't imply valuable.
The issue I think is that while we are indeed hard wired for empathy and compassion, this doesnt tell us why someone who isnt hard wired for empathy and compassion (or someone who is racist, sexist, etc) is wrong. The fact that natural selection tends to generally choose people who are empathetic and cooperative thing doesnt mean people who deviate from this view need to be corrected.
For instance, someone could make the argument (as Im sure its been made in the past) that due to natural selection, we are hard wired for heterosexuality and reproduction. However, to me, it doesnt follow that homosexuality is necessarily a pathology. Likewise, if most people are generally hard wired for empathy and cooperations, while others are not, we cannot say they are wrong unless we can justify it.
Agree. There are lots of good and terrible attributes which seem to be hard wired in humans. 'Deviant' behaviour is also a part of our heritage. The point is that societies have to choose which of these attributes we will privilege and what we do about the ones we think are unhelpful. This process is not scientific and relies upon intersubjective agreement and ongoing dialogue. In a broader sense morality is created by us to build social cooperation to achieve our preferred forms of order.
If they won't give you their kidney right there on the spot or object if you try to help yourself to it, they're bluffing.
Quoting Paulm12
Like, race or social/economic class? Well, if you ever get shot in New York City you'll find out pretty quickly. A homeless bum runs to a nearby deli a millionaire built and calls 911 bringing an ambulance with an Asian paramedic driven by a black driver to take you to an Indian doctor just in the nick of time before you bleed out in some trash-filled alleyway. For example.
Well, other people might not want to be treated the exact same way you want to be treated. Thats why the golden rule fails, in my opinion. Better to find out how they want to be treated first of all instead of assuming that everyone wants the same treatment as yourself.
There's a much larger problem faced in determining if anyone is 'wrong' in any context.
We know that Christian sects have been at war with each other for centuries over a single book. There is no agreement about abortion, capital punishment, trans rights, gun ownership, homosexuality, euthanasia, blood transfusions, taxation, stem-cell research, illicit drugs, slavery, prostitution, - you name it. Everyone is certain that their understanding of scripture, or their personal faith is right and some other person's understanding and faith is wrong. How can anyone demonstrate that they know what god/s want? It's subjective preference. In other words, the problems faced by secular morality are shared by religious morality.
There may be specific ways of being treated they may not want (not sharing a taste in music or some S&M shit) but pushing that treatment on them would be ignoring the golden rule for other specific ways of being treated (like not having things pushed on you).
It seems to me the golden rule remains intact. The exception to its merit you described above would only be valid if you ignored the golden rule in the first place. Unless you want to argue that people generally dont mind people making assumptions about how they like to be treated then I think the golden rule demands you do not make such assumptions. So it is as you say we shouldnt make those assumptions but the golden rule has that covered as far as I can tell.
1. Life, in and of itself, is valuable. It stands out from the vast cold & dead universe. Life is rare: only 1 planet in our adorable solar system.
2. Are we valuable to life? True we seem to be agents of extinction - we're on Thanatos' payroll. Yet, we seem to appreciate the great web of life, we're in the process of sussing out its secrets and we seem to want to keep Earth's ecology in one piece. We're life's best chance at surviving catastrophes, big and small, fast and slow. We're, to that extent, valuable.
The golden rule does not fail, but it is open to abuse like everything else.
A twisting of the rule (such as a masochistic rapist who wants to be raped) does not discredit it or cause it to fail. It's like putting sewage water in your coffee, it's only something morons do.
What a shame you soiled your nice post.
Well said @DingoJones!
:up:
I don't think the golden rule is meant be viewed in such a concrete way. My understanding, and how it was taught to me, was always that you treat others as you would like to be treated - in other words, to be consulted - to be asked what you like and to have your individual preferences respected. Now it is easy to upset this idea with some ridiculous exaggeration like saying, 'What if the other person is a cannibal!?'. I think this kind of attempted debunking of the golden rule is is a dodge and a distortion.
:up: :clap:
:fire: :clap: The scales now drop from my eyes, but I see there's more work that needs doing. Please continue.
Not much of a rule, then.
Still, assumptions are made, behavior is premised on them. Worse still, its self-cantered. You consider yourself before considering anyone else.
Not much of a rule, then.
It could be as simple as a handshake. No need to pretend were speaking about cannibalism.
This is why Hillels formulation of the Golden Rule (who was a Pharisaic scholar who lived a little before Jesus and probably an influence as far as one can tell anything of a historical Jesus).
"That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder
But I tend to agree, if the person is a real asshole they might not mind hateful and harmful things. Thus the Golden Rule is extremely informal. There must be more rigorous ethics underpinning it, and that is the point of ethical reasoning above and beyond quick and dirty sayings.
In this case it should be clear because we are different in our thresholds and standards of what is harmful, we should not act as though we can know everyones threshold/standard of harm and thus must respect that when making decisions that affect others to a reasonable degree. Its a kind of call for quietude and least aggression or presumption.
I think your opinion of the golden rule is a tiny minority opinion and is misguided.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's just your poor interpretation. The golden rule considers all stakeholders on an equal and balanced basis.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yep, it's often quoted here by @180 Proof There are many variations. Another favourite:
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think of it as a principle to guide action, not a block of concrete. But it's not the last word in moral thinking.
Thats the problem to begin with. Tastes, manners, proclivities, beliefs, desires, etc. are pluralistic.
Some posters demonstrate your observation quite definitively.
Quoting Tom Storm
Indeed! Luke 6:31 has "And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them."
A masochistic rapists dream, no doubt, but none of the more easily twisted versions worry me.
The golden rule is an excellent humanist/socialist mission statement imo.
My advice is simple, pick your team/place your vote/plant your flag etc as wisely as you can.
You pay for your learning. You make your choice and you pay the price, good or bad.
Look before you leap!
Trust your friends but secure that which you care about.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
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.
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Ad nauseum. Life has many many many flavours (pluralistic) but you must bite/lick etc to know what any single choice tastes like! Those who spend their life sitting on fences will simply go through life with a constant sore arse!
Yeah, this is how I see it too. Hopefully there are some basic principles most people can agree on, and then build a society off of these principles that is able to reinforce them.
Couldnt agree more with this. Ive found the Golden Rule (and its variants like the categorical imperitive) to be excellent guides or starting points for behavior.
I think the point of the Golden Rule is to take a charitable interpretation. It acts as a good starting point for how to treat someone when you dont know how they themselves want to be treated. If you know theyd rather be treated differently in certain circumstances, then obviously, you want to treat them the way *they* want to be treated as youd want them to treat you the way *you* want to be treated. So Id argue it works on a higher order as well.
Christians, Humanists, Buddhists, etc have a lot of common ground in this area.
I think the golden rule is held dearly by all good people. As an atheist, I have met many theists who seem to be humble, decent people who would help you if you needed them. I can never agree with their theism but your religion or lack of it can have little to do with your basic compassion for your fellow human beings. I judge a person by what they do much much more than what they say.
Each of us can justify the value of human life, including our own life by what we do every day.
In Genesis it is very clearly stated multiple times that man was created in the likeness of God. There is no possible secular counterpart to this.
Quoting 180 Proof
You all realize Hillel doesn't just derive his maxims ex nihilio? He was a Jewish religious scholar heavily steeped in Torah. He wasn't just picking out sayings from midair against an atheistic metaphysic. You can't view his teachings independently from the background in which he taught them. I mean you can, but it doesn't make sense.
At the end of the day, it doesn't even matter whether there's a perfect secular moral system (even it was "objective"). Even if there was, why should anyone care? Born from oblivion, pass to oblivion. Spend your time how you see best fit. Who am I to tell you how to live? I would say the same about religious frameworks if it were not for the fact that all get called to account before God according to Scripture.
An old book says a thing. Why should anyone care what Genesis says?
Because we're having a conversation on religious ethics?
Quoting Tom Storm
And your answer is?
I'm not trying to convince you if you're an atheist. That would be too big of a task for me. All I'm saying here is if we're going by the Bible then that carries certain implications, one of which grounds man's value via a divine being.
If you're asking me why you should believe it that's a whole different question. I can't be just given the task of convincing you to believe it all, that's too much for me. I don't believe in all the literal truth of Genesis.
Personally I basically have to believe in God otherwise I would probably be dead.
Fixed and accidentally deleted my response about subjective religious morality. Which included:
Until you can demonstrate -
1) which god is true;
2) which understanding of that god is true;
3) which religion is true;
4) what that god wants;
5) which holy book is true;
6) which interpretation of that holy book is true
- you don't have a reliable basis for moral behaviour. What you have is a claim coalescing around a series of subjective interpretations, in search of a totalizing meta-narrative.
Oh absolutely. Jews, who have been studying this text far longer than Christians, have been operating under this assumption since the beginning. You never hear Jews describe Genesis as literal truth. Maybe days in Genesis are more like "periods" or "epochs" maybe some the flood in Noah was regional as opposed to worldwide? There are ancient Mesopotomian flood stories. What would truth mean in this regard i.e. what would it mean for the flood story to be true? It's an interesting question to think about.
:fire:
Quoting Moses
This statement, which I mostly agree with, has nothing to do with the post from which you've quoted me quoting Rabbi Hillel's "maxim" (which is almost identical to that of Confucious and the Mah?bh?rata).
But in order to make such a demand for demonstration, you're already working out of a totalizing meta-narrative.
IOW, you're already decided which god is true, which understanding of that god is true, which religion is true, etc.
How do you know that?
I would actually certainly be dead. Suicide.
IMHO the greatest affirmation of the dignity of the disabled occurs in a dialogue between God and Moses beginning in Exodus 4:10. I am disabled. Likely the same disability as Moses. I need a way to frame that, and my experiences/observations are simply not a sufficient answer to that question. Gotta throw in with God on this one.
How do you know that you don't just like the authors of Exodus (various others and editors that compiled it from various sources presumably), and not the actual events? Does that matter to you, or is i the usefulness of the literary devices that enamor you (plot, character, narrative, theme, etc.).
It does matter, so that people can direct their lives best.
Except that it's often not clear what that is; people sometimes wonder, sometimes they are deeply perplexed, about what that would mean to "spend one's time how one sees best fit".
Unless one is very fortunate, the set of moral principles that one was raised with will probably sooner or later be challenged, or even proven counterproductive, so that one will end up in a moral crisis. And then one will possibly try to resolve that moral crisis, such as by reading various philosophical and religious texts and discussing them.
It's not about the authors to me. It's about the bigger picture message. I'm mainly looking for bigger picture themes to extract. It's a truth-claim regardless of whether it was written by the Yahwist, Elohist or Priestly - the three authors identified.
I believe it is the best dialogue in disability ever written - and in the 8th or 9th century BCE nonetheless which is amazing to me.
Yet there are people with a speech disability who don't believe in God, and yet seem to be doing just fine.
Belief in God isn't necessary in order to cope with a disability.
Sure they haven't killed themselves but how's their mental health? How do they view their own condition and place in society? That's the real question.
How healthy are they, mentally? IMHO the exodus narrative is the best one for mental health.
Quoting Moses
Why are ancient Israelite authors/editors immune from making shit up like any other authors of ancient times? The stories themselves might be compelling as profound mythological-history.. But the mythology might be a large part in that history. Perhaps there was a "Moses"..Perhaps not.. Perhaps there was a real person for which these stories are trying to apply.. But the archaeology and non-Biblical historical documents don't conform exactly to the stories.
Perhaps it is compelling because it is simply the most "complete" and "coherent" mythological history.. Not so much with the Greco-Roman myths perhaps.. And the ethical commands that go with it are unique in that it is from a god, and not simply human reason. People take that for granted. But that is not necessarily proof that it is actually what happened.
By the way, I'm not trying to devalue what gives you hope or what not.. If these stories are important truths that help you, so be it.. Believe what you're going to, but this is a philosophy forum, so some debate, even on strongly useful and helpful beliefs, can be debated.. I hope you agree with me there.
How would archaeology confirm or deny God talking with Moses? What would that even look like?
Who knows whether it's true but I'm throwing in with it. We all have to throw in with something. The difference is my philosophy traditionally promotes growth and wisdom while yours just leads to trying to make humanity extinct. You make your own truth claims and I make mine. Mine are concerned with helping others while yours are seemingly aimed at nullifying humanity and existence. Maybe you're right, but mine leads to a happier life if I had to bet. That's why I'm not so much a philosopher anymore.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't even know what proof would be. What would qualify as proof? I have no idea, I just have this beautiful dialogue. I don't even know what talking to God would be like. I'm just massively impressed with the Bible even if we can never confirm all the truth or claims written within it. We have confirmed some of the genealogy though, even as far back as Genesis. There's at least some truth in it, but a lot of it we'll never be able to confirm.
"Mental health", as assessed by secular, atheist psychology/psychiatry?
Perhaps if one first believed in the Bible, and only later became afflicted with a disability.
But having a disability first, and then trying to cope with it via adopting a religious narrative that was until then foreign to one doesn't seem like a viable course of action to me.
No proof of a phenomenon that has never empirically been verified except in ancient sources (or in claims from the Enquirer), seems a bit dubious to hang your hat on.
Quoting Moses
Understood.
Quoting Moses
Granted. I mean, you are not going off the handle doing self-referential claims, so I can leave it at that. A lot of people do something like "The Bible is true because the Bible says it's true". You don't seem to be doing that.
A story depicting an adult male conversing with and taking orders from an imaginary friend is "best ... for mental health"? :chin:
I don't see mental health as a secular/atheistic concept. I see it as a human one. Mental wellness.
Quoting baker
You see things however you want; it's not your life at stake. You don't have that task.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes in terms of how one ought to frame their disability, I believe the exodus dialogue is uniquely special. You could frame a disability any number of ways, most of which are toxic.
Sure. But as long as you live in a secular country, your mental health is going to be assessed by secular/atheistic standards. You don't actually have the feedom to declare yourself mentally healthy on your own.
On the contrary. I have tried to make sense of my predicament by turning to religion. It failed.
But from what you've said so far, it appears that you're framing your religiosity in a solitary, isolated way, and it's fully dependent on remaining that way. Are you a member of any organized religion?
I'm sorry to hear that. Did you dive into the text to get the root of the issue?
Quoting baker
I'll likely write a paper on this to extrapolate on my views. Submit it to a journal.
Quoting baker
I think we can certainly make meaningful observations on our mental health. My mental health has certainly improved since starting on the Bible. This is mostly just a solo endeavor now. People just need something to ground them. If you're not grounded well you're just going to be screwed. Who says value love? Why not just spend my time asserting dominance over other men? Or why not always talk about how awesome I am? A lot of the Bible is actually proper socialization that many people never received.
I don't doubt it. But I've heard the same from people who have turned to Scientology, Mormonism, Pentecostalism, Buddhism, Yoga amongst others. Any belief system will provide a grounding. That's what they do... as long as you believe in them.
Of course. More below.
Don't forget that the State owns your body. Literally.
From what you've said so far, it seems that what you actually have faith in is your own ability. Not in God, not in the Bible, but in yourself.
I'm unconvinced by scripture, as long as I see it as a matter of my own choice as to whether to believe what it says or not. Whether the Bible is true or not, whether it is the word of God or not is too fundamental to be a matter of my own decision.
This isn't about ability. Neither is it about me overcoming anything. It is about fundamentally framing/approaching the condition in a healthy way. The character of God frames disability wonderfully; better than any book or portrayal since - and in ~800 BC nonetheless. Very unusual for ancient lit.
I'll take other literature, fiction or not. Find me positive, strong examples of people who stutter and how the condition is presented. There's very few if any. The King's Speech was a decent attempt, but fell short -- it still perceived stuttering as a condition to be overcome through training and hard work, and that was one of the better ones.