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Any action you take to preserve life has the side effect of putting an economic value on life. You invest some amount of effort into the action and the action

Any action you take to preserve life has the side effect of putting an economic value on life. You invest some amount of effort into the action and the action has some amount of efficacy, so you can always divide the two to find a valuation. I agree that this exercise usually winds up as cheap rhetoric, but I'm not fully convinced it's the fault of the exercise. Refusing to calculate a value doesn't mean the value doesn't exist, it just means we are letting our instincts decide the value for us, and our instincts are prone to doing silly things like spending the wrong amount of attention on anti-terrorism vs heart disease.

dalbasal 5y ago
This has a "trolley problem" feel to it. It's a contrived scenario that doesn't reflect real life. I'm not suggesting that all our decision making is good. Terrorism vs heart disease just don't really compete. A model of the world where everything competes with everything isn't a good one for decision making. Just like "don't build a particle collider until we have solved poverty" is not a workable approach. Terrorism & heart disease don't have the same consequences, socially, politically or geopolitically. We're not machines. Even in machines' decision making, such moral calculus doesn't really play. Self driving cars won't, and don't need to solve the trolley problem any more than we do. ..and don't underestimate our instincts. They may not be as "perfect" as legible reasoning, but they are far more complete.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  > It's a contrived scenario Any time you help people is a contrived scenario? Uhh... I certainly hope not. Putting a valuation on life is not a result of philosophical debate, it's a direct, unintentional, unavoidable consequence of any real-world action we take that helps people. The only way to avoid it is to avoid helping people. Which is ludicrous. > Terrorism vs heart disease just don't really compete. They sure compete for tax dollars and public attention. > We're not machines. No kidding. That's why we prefer chasing Bin Laden to chasing heart disease. The "value of a life" discussion is an accusatory finger that says "yeah, actually we did have a choice there, and our choice had consequences," and I understand how that's uncomfortable, but that's exactly why we need the tool to hold our instincts accountable, such as we can.
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    No, the trolley problem (an example used in moral philosophy) is a contrived scenario.
- miltondts 5y ago
  > Terrorism vs heart disease just don't really compete. They do actually. Both for budget and for misery.

dalbasal 5y ago

This has a "trolley problem" feel to it. It's a contrived scenario that doesn't reflect real life. I'm not suggesting that all our decision making is good. Terrorism vs heart disease just don't really compete. A model of the world where everything competes with everything isn't a good one for decision making. Just like "don't build a particle collider until we have solved poverty" is not a workable approach. Terrorism & heart disease don't have the same consequences, socially, politically or geopolitically. We're not machines. Even in machines' decision making, such moral calculus doesn't really play. Self driving cars won't, and don't need to solve the trolley problem any more than we do. ..and don't underestimate our instincts. They may not be as "perfect" as legible reasoning, but they are far more complete.

jjoonathan 5y ago
> It's a contrived scenario Any time you help people is a contrived scenario? Uhh... I certainly hope not. Putting a valuation on life is not a result of philosophical debate, it's a direct, unintentional, unavoidable consequence of any real-world action we take that helps people. The only way to avoid it is to avoid helping people. Which is ludicrous. > Terrorism vs heart disease just don't really compete. They sure compete for tax dollars and public attention. > We're not machines. No kidding. That's why we prefer chasing Bin Laden to chasing heart disease. The "value of a life" discussion is an accusatory finger that says "yeah, actually we did have a choice there, and our choice had consequences," and I understand how that's uncomfortable, but that's exactly why we need the tool to hold our instincts accountable, such as we can.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  No, the trolley problem (an example used in moral philosophy) is a contrived scenario.
miltondts 5y ago
> Terrorism vs heart disease just don't really compete. They do actually. Both for budget and for misery.