In theory, at least, we might achieve a certain sort of invulnerability right at the end of life. Suppose that under favorable circumstances we can live a certain number of years, say 125, but no longer, and also that we can make life as a whole better and better over time. Under these assumptions we might hope to disarm death by spending 125 years making life as good as it can be. If we were lucky enough to accomplish that, afterwards (...) we would be immune to mortal harm. Especially for those who are closer to the beginning of life than to the end, however, this strategy leaves much to be desired. It is like devouring an entire banquet so as to eliminate the danger of someone stealing it from us. Like a feast, a good life is safely ours after it is over, but then safety comes too late to be of any use to us. To be of practical value, we need protection from mortal harm much earlier in life. (shrink)

This book, like the practice of medicine itself, is about the value of life. Health care is one of the clearest and most visible expressions of a society's ...

The Value of Life is an exploration of the actual and perceived importance of biological diversity for human beings and society. Stephen R. Kellert identifies ten basic values, which he describes as biologically based, inherent human tendencies that are greatly influenced and moderated by culture, learning, and experience. Drawing on 20 years of original research, he considers: the universal basis for how humans value nature differences in those values by gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, and geographic location how environment-related (...) activities affect values variation in values relating to different species how vlaues vary across cultures policy and management implications Throughout the book, Kellert argues that the preservation of biodiversity is fundamentally linked to human well-being in the largest sense as he illustrates the importance of biological diversity to the human sociocultural and psychological condition. (shrink)

The topic of this short essay is the basic axiological question (the value of life) and its reflections from biological level (definition of life) to the applications in philosophy and ethics (esp. bioethics and environmental ethics). We embrace life as an independent value, existing through its own realization. This text is an attempt to find a way to span the difference between the biocentric and anthropocentric ethical approach.

First published in 1985. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Low opportunity cost, weak influence of quality of life in the face of death, the social value of life extension to others, shifting psychological reference points, and hope have been proposed as factors to explain why people apparently perceive marginal life extension at the end of life to have disproportionately greater value than its length. Such value may help to explain why medical spending to extend life at the end of life is as high as it is, (...) and the various factors behind this value might provide normative rationale for that spending. Upon critical analysis, however, most of these factors turn out to be questionable or incompletely conceived; this includes hope, which is examined here in special detail. These factors help to explain complexity and nuance in the normative issues, but they do not provide adequate justification for spending as high as it often is. In any case, two additional factors must be added to the descriptive explanation of high spending, and they throw its normative justification into further doubt: the “insurance effect” and provider-created demand. Overall, the perception of especially high value of life at the end of life provides some normative justification for high spending, but seldom strong justification, and not for spending as high as it often is. (shrink)

“The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead.” Indeed. But even total and honest acceptance of this brute fact about our relationship to death does not diminish the value we see in short remaining life at the end of life. Few just “give in” and no more fight for life because death is seen as an inherent part of life. They still invest small amounts of additional life with huge value. How high may that (...) class='Hi'>value plausibly be? What is the value of a relatively short extension of life when death is inevitably near? (shrink)

If humans eventually attain the ability to create new life forms, how will it affect the value of life? This is one of several questions that can be sources of concern when discussing synthetic life, but is the concern justified? In an attempt to answer this question, I have analyzed some possible reasons why an ability to create synthetic life would threaten the value of life in general (that is, not just of the synthetic creations), to see if (...) they really give us reason to worry. The main conclusion is that it is unlikely that a future human ability to create life will really have a great negative impact on these characteristics of life. It therefore seems unlikely that the value of life will be negatively affected by the ability to create synthetic life, though it is possible that the properties in question will be less salient in the synthetic life and thus that the value of the synthetic life will be lower than that of existing life, which in turn can lead to a disturbing difference in value between different kinds of life. (shrink)

A principle claiming equal entitlement to continued life has been strongly defended in the literature as a fundamental social value. We refer to this principle as ‘equal value of life'. In this paper we argue that there is a general incompatibility between the equal value of life principle and the weak Pareto principle and provide proof of this under mild structural assumptions. Moreover we demonstrate that a weaker, age-dependent version of the equal value of life principle (...) is also incompatible with the weak Pareto principle. However, both principles can be satisfied if transitivity of social preference is relaxed to quasi-transitivity. Footnotes1 The authors are grateful to Luc Bovens, Kristian Schultz Hansen, Søren Holm, Franz Huber, Wiebke Kuklys, Gabriella Pigozzi, and two anonymous referees for detailed and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any errors and shortcomings are the responsibility of the authors alone. (shrink)

Anything within the causal economy of the universe is entirely natural, including values, humans themselves, together with their artifacts and products, and lifespans either as presently the case, or else radically extended. Further, normality of itself is no predicator of normativity. In view of this, arguments concerning the appropriate length of life from naturalness or normalness, are akin to the kind of hardened prejudice manifested by Procrustes in his beliefs concerning the appropriate length of beds, and the sleepers therein. Various (...) modern commentators have taken up the suggestion, initiated in the discourse by Williams, using the example of Karel Capek's opera The Makropulos Secret, that we should not seek to extend life because it will end in boredom. For a person‐process that has achieved self‐resolution, and come to a processual end, for a true Makropulos, there would be no passion, no fear, no affect, no boredom, no disvalue, no wailing. (shrink)

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The Ministry of Transport is planning for the construction of new roads in its territory. Many projects are being considered, and the Ministry needs to identify the worthwhile projects for which the benefits exceed the costs. Among costs and benefits are the expense of constructing the road, the time saved by motorists using the new road rather than some other road, the time saved through the reduction of congestion on other roads, and the expected increase or decrease in the number (...) of deaths due to traffic accidents. I am concerned in this paper with the last item on the list. It is, of course, difficult to estimate fatalities accurately, but this difficulty is neither unique nor central to our problem. The problem is how best to place a monetary value on fatalities, so that the expected number of fatalities can be compared with other costs and benefits in deciding whether to build a road. However chosen, the monetary value of fatalities for use in this context is what the economist means by “the value of life.” The term is almost a joke, a bit of gallows humor to exorcise the ghoulishness that inevitably clings to analysis of life and death in monetary terms. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Quality Adjusted Life Year or QALY is fatally flawed as a way of priority setting in health care and of dealing with the problem of scarce resources. In addition to showing why this is so the paper sets out a view of the moral constraints that govern the allocation of health resources and suggests reasons for a new attitude to the health budget.

The notion of the value of life is often invoked in discussions regarding medical care for the sick and the dying. This theme has figured in arguments about medical ethics for decades, but many of the phrases associated with this concept have received little serious scrutiny. It is true that some philosophers have declared a few commonly used phrases such as “the sanctity of life,” “the infinite value of life,” and “the value of life itself” to be (...) unclear at best or misguided at worst. Their hasty dismissal of these phrases, however, is not the end of the story. I generally agree with this philosophical judgment but for reasons very different from those typically given by others. Moreover, the reasons I wish to .. (shrink)

Claims (or the implicit assumption of the inherent worth of life) are pervasive and remain virtually unchallenged. I have already argued that these outright moral dictates are thinly veiled vestiges of theological ethics which, following the removal of their theological foundations, remain little more than nebulous claims supported only by fear of the consequences of a challenge. In my previous work, I rejected an a priori claim of an objective life’s worth, which is the worth that we should assign to (...) others’ lives, and elucidated a principled framework that gives rise to the said worth immediately, as a consequence of the experiences of its sentient environment. Herein, I address the complementary question of the value of one’s own life, which is the subjective value of life and, thus, Camus’s (in)famous view that “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide”. As before, I rejected the inherency of a life’s worth, showing it to be contradictio in adjecto, and instead show how this worth too can in large part be seen to emerge from sentient experiences of the subject. Many of these are innately linked to experiences of other sentient beings as objects, thus erecting a framework that is both principled and thoroughly humane with Schopenhauer’s ‘loving kindness’ running through it. Practically, my framework illuminates an understanding of suicide as a real-world phenomenon, helping those who remain living to understand a deceased one’s decision, and paving the way to answering questions, such as when there should be an attempt to prevent suicide, and what means of suicide prevention are ethically permissible. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche insisted that despite what philosophers and prophets have taught, suffering is desirable because it increases vitality and provides opportunities for growth. This is why one of his main criticisms of the pessimism and nihilism of his time is that they treat suffering as an argument against the value of life and in doing so, life is devalued by them. In an effort to find an alternative mode of valuation, he proposes that human beings should adopt an attitude (...) of acceptance and affirmation toward suffering, making it possible to positively value life despite its pain. However, while some experiences of suffering are beneficial, even necessary, others are utterly destructive. Nietzsche’s critique of his culture is deeply incisive and rightly insists that a revaluation of existing values is in order, the goals of which are rooted in his commitment to “make life bearable” and increase wellbeing. However, because his interpretation of suffering fails to acknowledge destructive suffering, the value of his proposed mode of valuation is limited in two ways. First, destructive suffering, which causes only harm, undermines both of the goals of revaluation. Attempting to affirm destructive suffering would also constitute masochism, which Nietzsche finds objectionable. Second, Nietzsche’s insistence that suffering is beneficial informs his view that compassion is bad. However, attending to the suffering of others will not make it impossible to leave them in pain when that pain is necessary and preserves the possibility of interceding on their behalf when doing so will limit destructive suffering, which increases wellbeing. Furthermore, because it ignores the social aspect of our lives life affirmation cannot be used to revalue all of our values. The value of the affirmative attitude is limited and Nietzsche fails to account for this because, in regards to both one’s own experiences and the experiences of others, his account of suffering disregards the existence of destructive suffering. Ultimately, if the goals of Nietzsche’s project are to be met, the use of additional methods of revaluation will be necessary. (shrink)

In the Germany of the 1860s and 1870s, the problem of the value of life was urgently debated, as a consequence of the two culture-defining systems of thought that had risen to prominence in those decades—Schopenhauerian Weltschmerz and the theory of evolution—and the degree to which they could be reconciled. On one hand, the struggle for existence affirmed the pessimistic inference as to the suffering and meaninglessness of the cosmos; on the other, it appeared to promise moral and material (...) improvement in human affairs. This article reconstructs the historical connections between the emergence of pessimism and Darwinism, most clearly represented by the work of Eduard von Hartmann, and it argues that Nietzsche’s programmatic statements on life, culture, and pessimism, from the Untimely Meditations on, are best understood in light of this context and his engagement with Hartmann’s writings. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The emerging discourse concerning the desirability of intervention in senescence to achieve radical life extension for persons has featured some striking blurring in traditional liberal and conservative commitments and positions. This affords an opportunity for re‐evaluation of these same. The canonical conservative view of the intrinsic value of life is re‐examined and found primarily to involve a denial of human prerogative, rather than an active underwriting of the value of life extension. A critique is offered of an (...) attempted argument against aging intervention from a proto‐conservative worry about a purported threat to human nature. Immortality is found to be a red herring, but a revealing one. Further, the classic liberal view is examined and found wanting in terms of the gravity of its own commitment to, and fullness of its account of the value of life, and the value of life extension. An analysis of the liberal conception of personhood is proposed that both defines persons necessarily as processes, and demonstrates the inalienable quality of the value of life extension to persons so defined. (shrink)

Daniel Callahan, in his short article “Hans Jonas and Death,” writes that while he appreciates the perspective on death offered by Jonas in his “The Burden and Blessing of Mortality,” he is concerned by certain omissions that suggest Jonas may not have fully appreciated the value of life. Callahan writes that Jonas does not say “a great deal about why life is worth living,” give an account of the “meaning of evolution for human life,” or describe the “experiences and (...) possibilities in the content of the lives of the human species not found in any other one”. I argue that Jonas not only explicitly addresses the meaning of evolution for human life but also develops an ethics rooted in the inherent value of all present and future life, with particular emphasis on the value of human life. (shrink)

When considering the social valuation of a life-year, there is a conflict between two basic intuitions: on the one hand, the intuition of universality, according to which the value of an additional life-year should be universal, and, as such, should be invariant to the context considered; on the other hand, the intuition of complementarity, according to which the value of a life-year should depend on what this extra-life-year allows for, and, hence, on the quality of that life-year, because (...) the quantity of life and the quality of life are complement to each other. This paper proposes three distinct accounts of the intuition of universality, and shows that those accounts either conflict with a basic monotonicity property, or lead to indifference with respect to how life-years are distributed within the population. Those results support the abandon of the intuition of universality. But abandoning the intuition of universality does not prevent a social evaluator from giving priority, when allocating life-years, to individuals with the lowest quality of life. (shrink)

Most of the reports on synthetic biology include not only familiar topics like biosafety and biosecurity but also a chapter on ‘ethical concerns’; a variety of diffuse topics that are interrelated in some way or another. This article deals with these ‘ethical concerns’. In particular it addresses issues such as the intrinsic value of life and how to deal with ‘artificial life’, and the fear that synthetic biologists are tampering with nature or playing God. Its aim is to analyse (...) what exactly is the nature of the concerns and what rationale may lie behind them. The analysis concludes that the above-mentioned worries do not give genuine cause for serious concern. In the best possible way they are interpreted as slippery slope arguments, yet arguments of this type need to be handled with care. It is argued that although we are urged to be especially vigilant we do not have sufficiently cogent reasons to assume that synthetic biology will cause such fundamental hazards as to warrant restricting or refraining from research in this field. (shrink)

Lord Sumption, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, has been a prominent critic of coronavirus restrictions regulations in the UK. Since the start of the pandemic, he has consistently questioned both the policy aims and the regulatory methods of the Westminster government. He has also challenged rationales that hold that all lives are of equal value. In this paper, I explore and question Lord Sumption’s views on morality, politics and law, querying the coherence of his broad philosophy and (...) his arguments regarding coronavirus regulations with his judicial decision in the assisted-dying case of R v Ministry of Justice. In Nicklinson, Lord Sumption argued for restrictions on liberty given the priority of the sanctity of life principle and the protection of others who may be vulnerable, as well as for deference to policy-making institutions in instances of values-based disagreement. The apparent inconsistencies in his positions, I argue, are not clearly reconcilable, and invite critical analysis of his impacts on health law and policy. (shrink)

As an initial approximation, pluralism may be understood as the combination of four theses. First, there are many incommensurable values whose realization is required for living a good life. Second, these values often conflict with each other, and, as a result, the realization of some excludes the realization of others. Third, there is no authoritative standard that could be appealed to to resolve such conflicts, because there is also a plurality of standards; consequently, no single standard would be always acceptable (...) to all fully informed and reasonable people. Fourth, there are, nevertheless, reasonable ways of resolving conflicts among incommensurable values. (shrink)

To raise the question of the nature of narrative is to invite reflection on the very nature of culture and, possibly, even on the nature of humanity itself. So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report of the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent—absent or, as in some domains of Western intellectual and artistic culture, programmatically refused. As a panglobal (...) fact of culture, narrative and narration are less problems than simply data. As the late Roland Barthes remarked, narrative "is simply there like life itself . . . international, transhistorical, transcultural."1 Far from being a problem, then, narrative might well be considered a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling,2 the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific. We may not be able fully to comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that culture may appear to us. As Barthes says, "narrative...is translatable without fundamental damage" in a way that a lyric poem or a philosophical discourse is not. · 1. Roland Barthes, "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives," Music, Image, Text, trans. Stephen Heath , p. 79.· 2. The words "narrative," "narration," "to narrate," and so on derive via the Latin gnārus and narro from the Sanskrit root gnâ . The same root yields γνωριμος : see Emile Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque , under the entry for this word. My thanks to Ted Morris of Cornell, one of our greatest etymologists. Hayden White, professor in the program of history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the author of The Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, The Greco-Roman Tradition, and Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe. " The Narrativization of Real Events" appeared in the Summer 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. Critical Responses to the present essay include Louis O. Mink's "Everyman His or Her Own Annalist", and Marilyn Robinson Waldman's "The Otherwise Unnoteworthy Year 711: A Reply to Hayden White," both in the Summer 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

This paper argues that under conditions of uncertainty, there is frequently a positive option value to staying alive when compared to the alternative of dying right away. This value can make it prudentially rational for you to stay alive even if it appears highly unlikely that you have a bright future ahead of you. Drawing on the real options approach to investment analysis, the paper explores the conditions under which there is a positive option value to staying (...) alive, and it draws out important implications for the problems of suicide and euthanasia. (shrink)