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Value of Human Life

Amadeus said:
You don't have to know them personally, just identify them when something tragic happens. It is human nature.
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I don't see why I should identify more with someone killed who I've never mett in a city within my own country than someone in afghansitan killed by a drone, it's human nature to be discusted by both, the fact that one is within arbitrarily drawn lines made my rulers means nothing to the humanity of the people.
 
RGacky3 said:
Except you DON'T KNOW most of your countrymen, they are just your countrymen due to arbitrary lines drawn by politicians and human rulers.
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YOu don't have to know them. You just have to identify with them, and sharing the same culture, and the same terrain, helps facilitate that. If my neighbor, whom I don't know personally, but he lives 2 miles down the road from me suffers from some type of loss or catastrophe, I feel bad for him. I drive by his house several times a week. I recognize his environment. I imagine his life to have commonalities with my own, thus I can relate to him at a level which is more significant to me than someone in the same circumstances in China.
 
lizzie said:
YOu don't have to know them. You just have to identify with them, and sharing the same culture, and the same terrain, helps facilitate that. If my neighbor, whom I don't know personally, but he lives 2 miles down the road from me suffers from some type of loss or catastrophe, I feel bad for him. I drive by his house several times a week. I recognize his environment. I imagine his life to have commonalities with my own, thus I can relate to him at a level which is more significant to me than someone in the same circumstances in China.
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Your neighbor you see, you are reminded of his catastrophe, becasue of his house, memories of seeing him and so on.

But if you hear on the news 10 people in your country (I presume the US) and 10 people in ... say mexico, I don't see what the difference should be, if you consider the 10 in your country to be worth more, it's illogical.

Also since when does life have more value if it has more commonalities to yours?
 
RGacky3 said:
I don't see why I should identify more with someone killed who I've never mett in a city within my own country than someone in afghansitan killed by a drone, it's human nature to be discusted by both, the fact that one is within arbitrarily drawn lines made my rulers means nothing to the humanity of the people.
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You are correct in an objective sense. I'm talking more about the subjective investment each of us has in human life.
 
RGacky3 said:
Your neighbor you see, you are reminded of his catastrophe, becasue of his house, memories of seeing him and so on.

But if you hear on the news 10 people in your country (I presume the US) and 10 people in ... say mexico, I don't see what the difference should be, if you consider the 10 in your country to be worth more, it's illogical.

Also since when does life have more value if it has more commonalities to yours?
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Objectively, it does't, but values tend to be highly subjective.
 
Amadeus said:
You are correct in an objective sense. I'm talking more about the subjective investment each of us has in human life.
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I personally put no more value on a life in my country than I do others, I was raised to not be nationalistic, and I try to be objective. Of coarse those whome I have personal contact with will have a larger effect on me, and thus if they die it will hurt me more, but not on a nation level at all.
 
RGacky3 said:
I personally put no more value on a life in my country than I do others, I was raised to not be nationalistic, and I try to be objective. Of coarse those whome I have personal contact with will have a larger effect on me, and thus if they die it will hurt me more, but not on a nation level at all.
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I am not nationalistic. I am just realistic. If someone down the street burns to death in a fire, it will have more impact on me than a similar incident on the other side of the world. I wish it wasn't so.
 
Amadeus said:
I am not nationalistic. I am just realistic. If someone down the street burns to death in a fire, it will have more impact on me than a similar incident on the other side of the world. I wish it wasn't so.
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Why wish it wasn't so? The ability to be totally objective, and not emotionally affected by circumstances, is to live in an essentially cold and sterile state of mind. Admittedly, there are times when that would be tempting, in order to avoid feeling pain, but I also envision it as almost inhuman. That frame of mind can enable people to commit deeds that we commonly consider unthinkable.
 
lizzie said:
That in itself is a subjective opinion.
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If you can defend it rationally ... then it's not subjective. If I say my "values" are that I deserve to be allowed to steal and no one else, I can't defend that rationally, and I don't think you can with nationalism either.
 
Amadeus said:
I am not nationalistic. I am just realistic. If someone down the street burns to death in a fire, it will have more impact on me than a similar incident on the other side of the world. I wish it wasn't so.
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Yes, but what do national boarders ahve to do with that, if you live in El Paso texas why is someone dying in NY more important than someone dying in Juarez Mexico?
 
lizzie said:
Why wish it wasn't so? The ability to be totally objective, and not emotionally affected by circumstances, is to live in an essentially cold and sterile state of mind. Admittedly, there are times when that would be tempting, in order to avoid feeling pain, but I also envision it as almost inhuman. That frame of mind can enable people to commit deeds that we commonly consider unthinkable.
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There was a time when I wish I was indifferent, but I now understand the value of emotion (especially empathy). I meant that I wish I felt the same empathy regardless of distance or circumstance. Perhaps we would be less inclined to harm each other if we were all emotionally connected.
 
Amadeus said:
There was a time when I wish I was indifferent, but I now understand the value of emotion (especially empathy). I meant that I wish I felt the same empathy regardless of distance or circumstance. Perhaps we would be less inclined to harm each other if we were all emotionally connected.
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But even before the "Information Age," this just wasn't geographically possible. Humans form "kinship groups" and then "tribes," and this is based on proximity. It's only been since the advent of mass communications that most people even learned about other tribes and cultures.

Our generation, and singularly, is bombarded incessantly with news--information to process, and I think that because of this, we bear a burden that our forebears did not. This can lead to a protective kind of paralysis of emotion, one to which I admit. It's enough to deal with what we can and should deal with rather than that over which we have no control.
 
Tigger said:
Definitely. Just as I place greater value on the lives of people whose politics and philosophical viewpoints agree with mine than those who don't.
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You mean that there are other people who actually share your political viewpoints?
 
I suppose the best way I could put it is in a completely objective sense, all lives are equal. Since we have a limit to how emotionally invested we can be towards others without completely losing our minds, the ones closest to us come first, no matter how you define close.

Typically it would start with immediate family/best friends, then move to cousins, friends, neighbors, and outwards in your social circles. If I was to care for every life equally, I'd either go crazy for treating every death like a family member, or be cold and unemotional for treating family members like I don't even care.

In my opinion it is a natural feeling to care for others inside your borders more since, at least in the USA, being patriotic and America being the prime country in the world is pushed upon you from the moment you can comprehend what others are saying.
 
RGacky3 said:
Except you DON'T KNOW most of your countrymen, they are just your countrymen due to arbitrary lines drawn by politicians and human rulers.
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So? I don't know most aliens, either. With my countrymen I can at least assume that we have certain common interests.
 
Perhaps humans are conditioned to view other humans who are close to them or may be related to them as more valuable as a genetic stock that needs to be passed on to future generations. People who are different from us may be viewed as competitors in the process of evolution. That would make ethnocentrism a survival trait from the point of view of natural selection.
 
RGacky3 said:
Except you DON'T KNOW most of your countrymen, they are just your countrymen due to arbitrary lines drawn by politicians and human rulers.
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Not only that, but the dislike of many countrymen runs fairly deep.
 
RGacky3 said:
Except you DON'T KNOW most of your countrymen, they are just your countrymen due to arbitrary lines drawn by politicians and human rulers.
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It's much more involved that a line on a map. Same language, same culture, same laws all influence how easily with empathize with other people. I can more easily imagine some guy in Los Angeles sitting in his den reading the same science magazine I'm reading than I can some guy in rural Pakistan doing who knows what with his free time. Ontario is harder because Canadian culture is slightly different, but it's still easier than the rural Pakistani. Mexico is harder than Canada because the culture is much different and the language isn't the same. To me, Mexico is no different than, say, Germany or Spain or France as far as my ability to empathize.
 
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Dittohead not! said:
Perhaps humans are conditioned to view other humans who are close to them or may be related to them as more valuable as a genetic stock that needs to be passed on to future generations. People who are different from us may be viewed as competitors in the process of evolution. That would make ethnocentrism a survival trait from the point of view of natural selection.
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Also from natural selection, strangers tended to pose more of a threat. Again, modern society has by-passed this to some extent.
 
Amadeus said:
This may be a difficult question to answer, but it is designed to provoke thought...

Do you place more value on human life when it is from your country?
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I have a different relationship with people but don't value them any less. Even in my own family I was closer to certain members but didn't necessarily care for them more. It's the same thing with countrymen versus people from other nations, I don't value them more in human quality, I simply have a more vested interest and loyalty towards them as fellow citizens.
 
Amadeus said:
This may be a difficult question to answer, but it is designed to provoke thought...

Do you place more value on human life when it is from your country?
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Not necessarily. There are plenty of Americans I'd value much less than someone from another country.
 
Viktyr Gehrig said:
So? I don't know most aliens, either. With my countrymen I can at least assume that we have certain common interests.
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1. What are the common interests?
2. Aliens are a different species.
 
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