Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Value in Human Life? Part II
Ok, so a couple days ago I posed the question: Does human life have intrinsic value? I talked a lot about the entertainment that humanity has received from human injury/death throughout history, and how that seems to indicate that human life does not intrinsically have any value, but I also said that I disagreed, that I believe human life does have intrinsic value. So today, I'm gonna talk about why I believe this.
To begin, if human life, truly has no intrinsic value, than life is valued on its accomplishments/failures, contributions to/detractions from society/the world, what it does, or possible even what it has the potential to do, but that last one's moving more into granting intrinsic value. So naturally, we would determine a value of a life by examining it, and that value could change. Most likely, value would be highest during the peak of ones life, and life would be considered less valuable in the beginning, when it is unproven and unsure, and at the end, when the usefulness is winding down. Based on these assumptions, there could be a case made that the value of life is dependent on what it does. We see things like abortion and geronticide in the world, and strong arguments are made for all sorts of mass killings of "useless" drains on society. Whether, this is dependent on age, societal status, race, intelligence, health, etc... there have been plenty of proponents of this way of thinking throughout society, and while they may have logical arguments, they are viewed by most as deranged or evil or something like that. That seems to indicate to me that human life must have some sort of intrinsic value, because if not, why does the loss of life in those "drains" on society upset the general populace so much?
To begin, if human life, truly has no intrinsic value, than life is valued on its accomplishments/failures, contributions to/detractions from society/the world, what it does, or possible even what it has the potential to do, but that last one's moving more into granting intrinsic value. So naturally, we would determine a value of a life by examining it, and that value could change. Most likely, value would be highest during the peak of ones life, and life would be considered less valuable in the beginning, when it is unproven and unsure, and at the end, when the usefulness is winding down. Based on these assumptions, there could be a case made that the value of life is dependent on what it does. We see things like abortion and geronticide in the world, and strong arguments are made for all sorts of mass killings of "useless" drains on society. Whether, this is dependent on age, societal status, race, intelligence, health, etc... there have been plenty of proponents of this way of thinking throughout society, and while they may have logical arguments, they are viewed by most as deranged or evil or something like that. That seems to indicate to me that human life must have some sort of intrinsic value, because if not, why does the loss of life in those "drains" on society upset the general populace so much?
Saturday, September 1, 2012
charity: water -- Campaign for Rwanda
I recently ran across this organization, charity: water, through Klout actually, and I think it is great.
Watch this video about their September campaign for Rwanda.
Watch this video about their September campaign for Rwanda.
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