• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Is human life much more valuable than other animals` life?

John Mekki

Banned
J
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Messages
535
In the past, I would have never thought about asking a question like this..

How much is human life much more important than other animals` life?
I assume that we would all agree that the life of one human being is more valuable than the life of a dog or a cat.
But what about the life of one human being against the life of ten dogs?
Against the life of 100 dogs?

Some people may argue that one human life may be more valuable than the life of all animals living on Earth, but .. one the basis of what?
We share most DNA we have with animals and animals also suffer and want to avoid death as we do.

If for example we assume than one human life may be worth, say, the life of 7 pigs, then it would make sense to consider to prohibit humans to eat pork, or even threated violent actions against people who eat pork meat
 
If a technologically superior race of giant insect-like beings from another solar system laid waste to most of Earth, and left it with only you, a steer, and some guy you don't know, the more important one for YOU would be the steer because it would be your food source.
 
By almost every measure that we'd judge human life more valuable than animal life, we have an identical measure to judge some human lives more valuable than other human lives, and some animal lives more valuable than humans.

If going by intelligence: newborn < horse < adult human.

Or going by proficiency in language, monolinguals < bilinguals < trilinguals < etc.

Or going by ability to overpower others, some women < some men.

Or going by capacity to suffer: mouse == cat == newborn == me.

Or going by genetic similarity: rat < chimpanzee < your immediate family < my immediate family < me.

Or going by lifespan: humans < sea tortoises.

Or going by propensity to slaughter their own kind indiscriminately: lions < humans < penguins.

Or going by propensity to destroy other species to the point of exinction: giant fricken asteroid < humans < anything else.

The trick here is whether accepting that organisms are "more valuable" than others entitles superior organisms to exploit inferior organisms for whatever purpose. Or whether we can accept that some people have more proficient traits with one another, without taking that as an argument for specieism are eugenics. That's kind of the rub with arguments categorizing others into superior or inferior groups.
 
Last edited:
@Dessi. I am glad that you said almost.

My criteria is simple. human are my species. Other species are not. Therefore when it comes down to protecting, preserving, or helping a member of my species, versus another species, my species member will always be protected first and formost (although I am still split on PETA/ALF ... - just kidding I would even protect those). And it is the same for other species by the way.

The only criteria you need is : My species>Not My species. And yes it is quite binary.
 
Most people seem to go by by genetic similarity: rat < chimpanzee < your immediate family < my immediate family < me

"My species > Not My species" is a foreshortened version of above
 
John Mekki said:
How much is human life much more important than other animals` life?
I assume that we would all agree that the life of one human being is more valuable than the life of a dog or a cat.
Click to expand...

To be brutally honest, your life is less valuable to me than my dog's life is.

If either you or my dog were going to be killed, I'd save my dog.
 
Mark6 said:
Most people seem to go by by genetic similarity: rat < chimpanzee < your immediate family < my immediate family < me

"My species > Not My species" is a foreshortened version of above
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but my cat > your immediate family.

My stuff > your stuff.
 
So, yeah, I think it goes back to natural selfishness. It's not that other animals are less valuable than humans, it's that things you like are subjectively more valuable than things you don't.
 
Is human life much more valuable than other animals` life?

It depends on which humans ..

I assume that we would all agree that the life of one human being is more valuable than the life of a dog or a cat.
Click to expand...

I would assume you really haven't thought this out.
 
CaptBang said:
If a technologically superior race of giant insect-like beings from another solar system laid waste to most of Earth, and left it with only you, a steer, and some guy you don't know, the more important one for YOU would be the steer because it would be your food source.
Click to expand...
They would both be my food source. I'm with Piggy, ehcks and Skeptical Greg here. There are individual animals and individual humans that make broad statements like the OP invalid in my opinion.
 
John Mekki said:
How much is human life much more important than other animals` life?

[...]

If for example we assume than one human life may be worth, say, the life of 7 pigs, then it would make sense to consider to prohibit humans to eat pork, or even threated violent actions against people who eat pork meat
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you're trying to go with this. Does it matter if one can quantify the value of living organisms? Or is it enough to say they have value?

Example: I think we'd all agree that a homeless person on the street has less value to society than an accomplished inventor. Does this justify violent acts toward the homeless person? I think (hope?) we'd all answer in the negative.
 
It depends how you measure value. Our species--and all other species, as far as I can tell--seems to have evolved an "us vs. them" mentality that overall has greatly benefited us by putting our interests ahead of the interests of other species.

So from an evoutionary standpoint, each species values its own life more than the lives of other species. In that sense, yes: Human life is more valuable than animal life--to humans. Wolves value wolf life more. Mosquitoes value mosquito life more. Etc.

I'm willing to accept the evoutionary status quo as a good rule of thumb. If you want to make an argument that some other's species' self-value is morally superior to mine, go for it. I'd be interested to see the basis for such a claim.
 
Aepervius said:
My criteria is simple. human are my species.
Click to expand...

I take pretty much the same view regarding my family and race (a kind of extended family). Given the number of genocides throughout history, it's in my rational self-interest to make sure my race keeps and maintains its power. That's just science.
 
theprestige said:
It depends how you measure value. Our species--and all other species, as far as I can tell--seems to have evolved an "us vs. them" mentality that overall has greatly benefited us by putting our interests ahead of the interests of other species.
Click to expand...
I just don't think this is true. Kinship relations dominate in biology--until the last few centuries, nobody gave a **** about the brotherhood of man. Genocide goes back just about as far as humans do. That tribe next door pissed you off? Slaughter the men and boys, kill the women who have known men, keep the virgins for yourself. Hill tribe good, valley tribe bad.

So from an evoutionary standpoint, each species values its own life more than the lives of other species.
Click to expand...
This also isn't true. Hell, most species on Earth aren't capable of valuing anything. But they, too, will care about kin more than kind. There's just no mechanism in evolutionary biology that would drive species-wide concern.

I'm willing to accept the evoutionary status quo as a good rule of thumb.
Click to expand...
"Evolutionary status quo" is something of an oxymoron, but we've had this thing called 'culture' for the past 150,000 years or more, so I think that ship sailed a long time ago. In fact, you're just arguing for complacency here. "The moral circle has expended this far, and that seems far enough to me."
 
It actually is an interesting question.

We value intelligence and out own species. But within out own species, we ALWAYS put kids (less intelligent) above all else.... the kids are the first in the life boats.

But many times I see a hundred stories about murders and not really flinch... and then read a story about animal cruelty that will haunt me for days.

I may think human life is of more value.... but when I hear stories about 3 or 4 elephants getting killed for their tusks.... I want to hear how the elephants stomped the poachers.

I think that if we actually don't like the people.... we assign more value to the animal.
 
theprestige said:
So from an evoutionary standpoint, each species values its own life more than the lives of other species. In that sense, yes: Human life is more valuable than animal life--to humans. Wolves value wolf life more. Mosquitoes value mosquito life more. Etc.

I'm willing to accept the evoutionary status quo as a good rule of thumb.
Click to expand...

I don't know where you get that evolutionary standpoint from, but organisms compete with members of their own species all the time. There's no evolutionary inconsistency with some population of humans sectioning off a portion of their population to be exploited and used for the advantage of the privileged group.

You can appeal to evolutionary as a normative moral theory, just not a human rights moral theory. There's nothing evolutionary inconsistent with the 1000s of years of genocide, slavery, or any manner of harm humans cause to other humans.
 
My wife once asked me, if a dog and a child ran out in front of the car and by swerving I could avoid one, but not both , what would I do.
My answer was that it would depend if I knew the dog.

Now this was a tongue in cheek response- but it seems likely that one could value a familiar animal more than an unknown child. Indeed, one might positively dislike a neighbour's child for quite understandable reasons.

We are conditioned by law to value human life, because the penalty for murder is higher than for slaughtering an animal. The very language implies that killing a human is a different kind of action from killing (say) a sheep. This may be because lawyers are (putatively) human and know they are already on thin ice.

I accept that killing sheep is different from killing people. I had lamb for dinner.
I did not know the sheep involved.

there are some people, nonetheless, who would be none the waur o' a hangin in my opinion.
 
Last edited:
There's no objective way to measure the value of different animals, the concept isn't even coherent. Of course that's not the same as saying we're all objectively equally valuable either.
 
I suspect, when the chips are down, it's every man for himself, followed by family, then friends....etc Then every single thing that can be consumed to aid in survival becomes viewed as any other animal views it.

So yeah, if it means surviving or not surviving, I reckon everything else is secondary to the individual. If I gotta kill 4,000 deer, 10,000 squirrels, 20,000 tree grubs and 10,000 brook trout to live from now until I and my loved ones died, I would so do it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom