Success Happy - Philosophy of Value question: Life is cheap. Do you agree? Why/why not?

Philosophy of Value question: Life is cheap. Do you agree? Why/why not?

Okay,this would fall under the theory of value. I say life is cheap. Why? Because it's treated as cheap by the world-both the natural as well as the human world. Note:This is not a tirade against inequality.It's a genuine philosophical argument. What determines the value of life? First let's clear up what I'm talking about here. What do I define as life in this question? The best way to describe it is as the "life-force", "enlivening factor" or "that which animates". The reason I'm not giving a more scientific definition is because no such definition exists. When someone dies, we may be able to fix their bodies right back up to a perfectly healthy state, but we still can't revive them. Not yet, anyway. A machine can be fixed or repaired and made to work again, but a living thing cannot. We don't yet have a scientific idea of what the "force" that animates living things is. Maybe we will in the future, but not yet. I don't want to use the word :soul" as that has a lot of other definitions as well as all sorts of religious connotations. This is a philosophy argument, not a religious one. So why is life cheap? Look around you. What determines the value of life? The only way in which we can valuate life is by seeing how it's treated. Something precious is conserved and protected, isn't it? Let's start with the human world. In our world, a person's life seems to be valued by his replace-ability. That's why great leaders are mourned by millions, while the poor and destitute are largely forgotten and abandoned, even if large numbers of them die versus just one leader. We need huge numbers of deaths among the poor just to match the shock felt by the loss of just one great political, social, business, military or other leader. In other words, the value is determined by outside factors. All people have the same "life-force" animating them, after all. There's no reason why such an "animating factor" should differ. It just has to bring people to life. Their thoughts, ideas and accomplishments are irrelevant to this force. It just keeps them living. Which means that this "life-force" itself is cheap, since the value given to a person's life is determined by outside factors, not intrinsic ones. As for the natural world, it's no different. To a conservationist or environmentalist, preserving diversity and habitat is important. They don't want species going extinct. But no one complains when you squish an ant, do they? Why not? You just killed a living thing. Even environmentalists won't complain. Because ants are plentiful. Easily replaceable. But white rhinos, whales and coral are not. Once again, it's outside factors with intrinsic value being low. What about the animals and plants themselves? Nature is all about striking a balance. If nature truly cared about preserving life, then it would have evolved a system which minimized killing. But no. It's about preserving a natural balance. Animals and plants are killed by others everyday in nature. Millions of them. Billions, if you take insects and trillions or more if you take microscopic life. Yet, not too many of the higher order creatures are killed naturally. There are millions of times more bacterial deaths than there are those of lions or elephants or giant Sequoias. Once more is about replace-ability, an outside factor. And so I put forward that life itself, the "life-force" which keeps us going, has a low intrinsic value. Any additional value added to it is due to external factors. This is an argument I'd like to test. So please let me know if you agree or disagree with proper, fleshed-out reasons. Note:I can't make this shorter while preserving clarity and subject development. I don't want crank answers. Please don't post Wikipedia links to Theory of Value unless you want to highlight a concept given there, in which case you'll have to explain what it is you're highlighting here first. And thank you for your patience and your contribution.

Public Comments

Since everything in this worldly life is limited by time and space, we get lost in this limitations frequently. Especially in this materialistic world, we have landed into big problems like Nuclear Weapons, HIV, Aids, Terrorism, Climatic Change etc due to wrong notions and policies. We need Faith and belief in a philosophy which will extend this meaning less life to a meaningful one. Means no limitation (time & space) should be there. Only religions can answer this beleif and guide humans that will lead to a meaningful life. We all dont know what is the actual "human life" in us precisely. But we know life is there when we live. This "life" leaves this world when death occurs. Only the religous belief can make us to live peacefully in this meaningless world. The challenge for each os us is to find the right religion among the major world religions. For this we need to read the original source of each religion. Donot see the followers of each religion as they dont follow rightly. Read the holy books of each religion. You will get the right beleif.
Life is made cheap by overpopulating. People seem driven for quantity of life, instead of quality of life.
Life is free and it is priceless. The things that keep the life force or animating force moving for humans food, water and sex are free. Furthermore, you may see the death of animals as death but its really a transformation of energy and in the end creates more life. We will find all of our attempts to patent those things which allow us to live we will fail. It is anti-nature to own food and water fundamentally. I have to be honest your writing could use a little clarity. I followed your argument but i disagree and its also sort of like so what? how si that going to make anything better? That should always be asked when we bring a product invention or idea to the world. How is this going to improve thigns?
The only value of human life outside of the human condition is as food. Life, in the macro term, has its own agenda. Namely to survive, expand and thrive. We contribute to this end by doing likewise. Inside the human condition, life has varying value. Good leaders that strive to improve the condition of man, is priceless. Whereas the opposite is the case for those that seek to enslave or destroy their fellow man. Since there are many variations of the theme, there are wide variations in the value of a particular human life. However, man is a combative creature and when two leaders collide, then they will spend the flower of a generation to settle the issue. This cheapens life. When the supply of people overrun the demand for them, this also makes life cheap. You are somewhat right in considering life as a force because like force, to accomplish work, it is expended over time and distance. The value of the work determines the value of the life but it does not diminish the essential value of life because life never loses life. Other forms will feed upon it and they in-turn are fed upon. Life is not monolithic. It is a system that has innumerable feedback loops which enables it to be almost eternal. Life on this planet has existed for almost a billion years and there is some evidence that life may be older and exists elsewhere in the universe. Life has demonstrated that it will shed any amount of lives to maintain at least one viable cell. This makes life's value of life very high indeed.
life is not "cheap" either is it easy yet, it is priceless for those willing to pay their dues and really know the life this life holds...
Life is free but priceless and precious, not cheap. Unless we choose to deem it so = Be it life in general, collective terms or life in individual terms. Great leaders are mourned by millions after their death. Yes, millions but not the entire world. A poor and destitute guy in a place unheard of is left dead. i probably would not know the great leader personally but have heard of him/her through the news. The poor and destitute just "happens" to be much, much less famous. Probably and hopefully he has lived his worth wherever he was and whatever he did. The worth of a person should not be so-called determined or measured by others though, very often, it has been so. (But well, we are all imperfect creatures living in a broken-down world, ain't we?) i think the reason (and not excuse) and "answer" for many, many things in and of this world are that we are human and imperfect. How do we make things perfect when we ourselves are not? Endangered species are protected and this, in that sense, refers to the fact that we are bound by law not to kill them. Say President Obxxx (some may say tocuhwood) were to die and all around the world, people are going to mourn for him. But i can tell you i don't give it a damn. He can die for i care. Not like i elected him or something. (i'm not from US but rather Singapore, anyway). So does his worth lie in having perhaps millions of people worldwide mourning for him and yet me here in Asia not giving a damn, anyway? The one same thing can mean vastly different worths/values to different individuals. But i think the important thing is not whether life is cheap (which i beg to differ, anyway) but not to cheapen our own worth/value in this temporal journey on earth called life. =) i hope you get what i'm trying to convey, anyway. PS: yes, i admit i am one of those who squish ants and "murder" cockcroaches (but i have never invited them near me, anyway)
In my world all life is of value and sacred. We should be allowed to be immortal if we chose, or not. As for life being cheap, those who buy into that are sons of evil. If you put quantity above quality profit and gain above spirit material above holy then you have created you own hell and dont even know it.
It depends on several main factors such as: family and cultural background, your level of education, your earning power and potential, democratic or non-democratic system of government. Where you live, whether in a First world or under-developed society, also counts. The environment would often decide on the potential or value of people at various levels of society. How much each can contribute to the community or nation. Generally, life is cheaper among natives in under-developed countries, than in expensive cities around the world, where there are many wealthy people. The world has become materialistic and often a person's value is gauged on how much he earns and able to provide for his family and country. And where there are ethnic violence or lack of control over private gun ownership or guerillas, weak govt control, esp in a non-democratic society, etc life tends to be cheap, too. Just an idea.
life is a surprise gift !! so thanks to creator !! any gift value it first !! another thing if you look to your body there are millions of cells they are alive !! so this body is of so many lives !! whom you say cheap !! look at the system !! the earth and planets move around the sun!! a smallest atom an electron is moving a round just like a earth around the nucleus !! So what a similarity !! We don't have full knowledge yet !! we reach to just moon !! there are so many solar systems !! with just little knowledge how you say life is cheap? first you calculate the stars how many ? how many atoms in the body? science is not able to count it ok !! according to me little knowledge is dangerous to define something like this great creation - a life !!!
For starters, value is a subjective concept. The fact that nature (impersonal) or persons may not value individual lives very much doesn't mean that I shouldn't value them. Also, your argument is targeting individual lives but what about the collective value of life? Individual lives may not be very valuable in the order of things, but the collective survival of certain life forms (species) is very valuable to ecosystems. I also think that you're judging the value of life like it's a mathematical problem. That is one approach to the problem of life's value, but not the only one. Seeing that value is a very subjective notion at bottom, all of this mathematical calculating isn't necessary to value life. So life has no intrinsic or objective value but what does?
Value of questions and answers does not get even close with Value of Life.
It is like a broken net. Its value is not just the costs of repair or replacement, but the down time it is not functional as well as the leverage it pulls for the whole operation must be accounted for. Damages could be tremendous.