Life and Values

[RationalBiker 0]

You take on a responsibility, you take on to care for it, you take it under your protection. The fact that you saved its life or could not save its life is reflection on how you did on a commitment or a promise to yourself.

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There aren't many (if any) commitments I would be willing to make to a human (including myself), much less a pet, that would be totally unconditional. The second sentence here suggests that you would make an unconditional commitment or promise to yourself that you would always save your pet's life vs. (insert other value here). Is this true or am I being too literal?

Adding the context of a drowning human being (complete stranger or otherwise in my mind) as the other value in question changes the moral necessity of following through on that commitment, at least as far as I'm concerned. I think I remain in the minority in this thread in favoring the potential value of the human being over the actual value of the pet.

Whatever value pets may have been throughout the history of mankind or whatever they may hold for our future, I think that humans who have been complete strangers to me have built this great country and civilization as a whole. I have a multitude of values today that have come from the works and efforts of total strangers, human beings. I have every reason to suspect that human beings, complete strangers will continue to improve our lot in life as well. Where would our lives be if we depended on cats and dogs for these things?

I understand the purpose of Stephen starting this thread; to make people think. But in all sincerity, after thinking about this for a couple of days, I find it quite disturbing the number of people who would just let the stranger drown.

[Erskine Fincher 0]

The original question as stated: "Would it ever be morally proper to ..." (emphasis added). So sure there is an answer. In fact, some people have answered "yes," and some people have answered "no."

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I'm not sure who has answered "no", but I think I should point out that my answer came down to "yes, but only in a context where humans have become a disvalue." See AS, Book II, Chapter 7.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

I don't put much weight on this "potential value" idea.... We evolved with empathy as a survival instinct, and it is that instinct that makes us imagine being in the place of the stranger.... I think my explanation makes more sense than a "value" one, the explanation of -empathy.

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Arnold, it's a good thing our empathy instinct was not instead implanted on trees, else we'd all be environmentalists today. Without bothering now with a general refutation of the invalid notion of an "instinct," I will just say that once you divorce a feeling such as empathy from value, then you are also divorcing feelings from reason. The feelings we have are a consequence of all the choices we make, of all the ideas we form, not something implanted on us by some supposed instinct. To say that "empathy" makes more sense than "value," is to say that effect makes more sense than cause.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

The original question as stated: "Would it ever be morally proper to ..." (emphasis added). So sure there is an answer. In fact, some people have answered "yes," and some people have answered "no."

I'm not sure who has answered "no", but I think I should point out that my answer came down to "yes, but only in a context where humans have become a disvalue." See AS, Book II, Chapter 7.

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Erskine, I think you need to be a bit more specific than that. What particular point in that chapter do you find relevant here?

[Marty61 0]

I understand the purpose of Stephen starting this thread; to make people think.  But in all sincerity, after thinking about this for a couple of days, I find it quite disturbing the number of people who would just let the stranger drown.

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I have appreciated and learned from your very articulate posts on this topic. You bring to bear a broad view of the significance of human life which reminds me of our potential for greatness. Thank you. Wow. Whatever metropolitan area you protect is lucky to have you.

As one who has deeply loved her pets, I know it would be emotionally charged for me to choose between a beloved pet and a stranger. But humans win, every time. No contest. I'm not sure I understand how anyone could watch a human being die, knowing it could have been prevented.

I have often left my pets behind as I travel, visit other humans, etc. Never gave it a second thought, only an occasional worry. I think anyone who would save the pet needs to get out and meet more people! It implies a dependence on the pet which is, perhaps, inappropriate? Or is that too "playing shrink?"

[Erskine Fincher 0]

Erskine, I think you need to be a bit more specific than that. What particular point in that chapter do you find relevant here?

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  The trainmaster reached for the telephone in the dispatcher's office, to summon an engine crew, as ordered. But his hand stopped, holding the receiver. It struck him suddenly that he was summoning men to their death, and that of the twenty lives listed on the sheet before him, two would be ended by his choice. He felt a physical sensation of cold, nothing more; he felt no concern, only a puzzled, indifferent astonishment. It had never been his job to call men out to die; his job had been to call them out to earn their living. It was strange, he thought; and it was strange that his hand had stopped; what made it stop was like something he would have felt twenty years ago—no, he thought, strange, only one month ago, not longer.

  He was forty-eight years old. He had no family, no friends, no ties to any living being in the world. Whatever capacity for devotion he had possessed, the capacity which others scatter among many random concerns, he had given it whole to the person of his young brother—the brother, his junior by twenty-five years, whom he had brought up. He had sent him through a technological college, and he had known, as had all the teachers, that the boy had the mark of genius on the forehead of his grim, young face. With the same single-tracked devotion as his brother's, the boy had cared for nothing but his studies, not for sports or parties or girls, only for the vision of the things he was going to create as an inventor. He had graduated from college and had gone, on a salary unusual for his age, into the research laboratory of a great electrical concern in Massachusetts.

This was now May 28, thought the trainmaster. It was on May 1 that Directive 10-289 had been issued. It was on the evening of May 1 that he had been informed that his brother had committed suicide.

  [...]

  The trainmaster knew nothing about political philosophy; but he knew that that had been the moment when he lost all concern for the life or death of any human being or of the country.

The conductor stood by the rear end of the Comet. He looked at the lights of the tunnel, then at the long chain of the Comet's windows. A few windows were lighted, but most of them showed only the feeble blue glow of night lamps edging the lowered blinds. He thought that he should rouse the passengers and warn them. There had been a time when he had placed the safety of the passengers above his own, not by reason of love for his fellow men, but because that responsibility was part of his job, which he accepted and felt pride in fulfilling. Now, he felt a contemptuous indifference and no desire to save them. They had asked for and accepted Directive 10-289, he thought, they went on living and daily turning away in evasion from the kind of verdicts that the Unification Board was passing on defenseless victims—why shouldn't he now turn away from them? If he saved their lives, not one of them would come forward to defend him when the Unification Board would convict him for disobeying orders, for creating a panic, for delaying Mr. Chalmers. He had no desire to be a martyr for the sake of allowing people safely to indulge in their own irresponsible evil.

  When the moment came, he raised his lantern and signaled the engineer to start.

(Emphasis added.)

[piz 0]

As one who has deeply loved her pets, I know it would be emotionally charged for me to choose between a beloved pet and a stranger. But humans win, every time. No contest. I'm not sure I understand how anyone could watch a human being die, knowing it could have been prevented.

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I can't go quite as far as "humans win, every time." As I said in my earlier post, there are specific humans I would not save, some who I would simply sit and watch die even if there was nothing else that needed saving (one example on the "don't know personally" list: well, I won't mention any names, but his initials are Osama Bin Laden).

But I would always save any human who's not on the lists before I'd save any animal, so my answer to the original question is: the stranger, every time.

[writeby 0]

The optionality is what is in question. If you can demonstrate that valuing a pet over a human life is optional, then I will concede the argument.

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The fact that it's my life that is here important to me - not that of a stranger.

No, you never met THE Rocky. That was Rocky II -- and Apollo & Roark. I've got a family tree if you'd like.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

The original question as stated: "Would it ever be morally proper to ..." (emphasis added). So sure there is an answer. In fact, some people have answered "yes," and some people have answered "no."

I'm not sure who has answered "no", but I think I should point out that my answer came down to "yes, but only in a context where humans have become a disvalue." See AS, Book II, Chapter 7.

Erskine, I think you need to be a bit more specific than that. What particular point in that chapter do you find relevant here?

[...]

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Oh. I thought you referenced Ayn Rand in support of your conclusion. Instead you were referencing her as support for the fact that someone might disvalue humanity. You hardly needed to reference Atlas Shrugged for that. That would have been easily stipulated.

[Arnold 0]

Arnold, it's a good thing our empathy instinct was not instead implanted on trees, else we'd all be environmentalists today.    Without bothering now with a general refutation of the invalid notion of an "instinct," I will just say that once you divorce a feeling such as empathy from value, then you are also divorcing feelings from reason. The feelings we have are a consequence of all the choices we make, of all the ideas we form, not something implanted on us by some supposed instinct. To say that "empathy" makes more sense than "value," is to say that effect makes more sense than cause.

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For a start, by instinct, I don't mean knowledge, but rather drives or urges outside the origins of 'knowledge' as we know it.

Secondly, it was precisely my point; the empathy drive to save the stranger is not reason based, or else we would have no trouble laying out the REASONS for our actions.

IOW, I see "potential value", as rationalization, a stretch of imagination by gum. Honestly, what are the odds that a particular stranger is going to be the one who will benefit your life?

I have given my reasons for discounting this supposed justification, by pointing out the many strangers that arrive as daily replacements, and the many we don't save when we feed Fido.

So, here is the final answer to your question. We save the stranger not because of our reasoned values, but because it is in our nature to do so. Please don't take this as the only reason we may value a life, because, there can be many reasons. It's just that in this case, we don't have them. Why else is everyone struggling to come up with an answer? I know most here won't touch my point of view with a barge pole, but hey, I'm here to walk out on a limb, not cling to the trunk of orthodoxy.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Arnold, it's a good thing our empathy instinct was not instead implanted on trees, else we'd all be environmentalists today.    Without bothering now with a general refutation of the invalid notion of an "instinct," I will just say that once you divorce a feeling such as empathy from value, then you are also divorcing feelings from reason. The feelings we have are a consequence of all the choices we make, of all the ideas we form, not something implanted on us by some supposed instinct. To say that "empathy" makes more sense than "value," is to say that effect makes more sense than cause.

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For a start, by instinct, I don't mean knowledge, but rather drives or urges outside the origins of 'knowledge' as we know it.

So, you view "empathy" in the same vein as, say, hunger? The problem is, these "drives or urges" are always based on some aspect of physiology. What is the phsyiological basis of "empathy?" And, while we are at it, if you are going to pursue this line of argument, please define just what you mean by "empathy."

Secondly, it was precisely my point; the empathy drive to save the stranger is not reason based, or else we would have no trouble laying out the REASONS for our actions.

Who is this WE you are referring to? A number of people on this thread have presented their reasons, some rather clearly. And, regardless, since when is "trouble laying out the REASONS" for any actions to be taken as evidence that some "drives or urges" are in play?

IOW, I see  "potential value", as rationalization, a stretch of imagination by gum. Honestly, what are the odds that a particular stranger is going to be the one who will benefit your life?

But your latter statement just demonstrates, for those who have advocated this issue as one of relative values, that such a value judgment in regard to a stranger is precisely what needs to be factored in.

I have given my reasons for discounting this supposed justification, by pointing out the many strangers that arrive as daily replacements, and the many we don't save when we feed Fido.

And, with all due respect, you have ignored the responses countering that argument given by a few people on this thread.

So, here is the final answer to your question. We save the stranger not because of our reasoned values, but because it is in our nature to do so. Please don't take this as the only reason we may value a life, because, there can be many reasons. It's just that in this case, we don't have them. Why else is everyone struggling to come up with an answer? I know most here won't touch my point of view with a barge pole, but hey, I'm here to walk out on a limb, not cling to the trunk of orthodoxy.

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Which is one of the several reasons that I like you so much, wrong as you are.

[Erskine Fincher 0]

I know most here won't touch my point of view with a barge pole

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Oh, that's not true! We're all pet owners here. We're not squeamish.

[Arnold 0]

So, you view "empathy" in the same vein as, say, hunger? The problem is, these "drives or urges" are always based on some aspect of physiology. What is the physiological basis of "empathy?" And, while we are at it, if you are going to pursue this line of argument, please define just what you mean by "empathy."

Not quite like hunger. I liken it more to a psychological need, like the need to be loved, or to love, or have companionship. Evolution would have furthered those who acted empathically, as it would have furthered lives because mothers nurtured their children. Is the mother instinct physiological? I would say it is wired into the mental make-up, as is empathy. Empathy is the ability to place ourselves in the shoes of another. That ability has worked for our survival; it makes us what we are.

Who is this WE you are referring to? A number of people on this thread have presented their reasons, some rather clearly. And, regardless, since when is "trouble laying out the REASONS" for any actions to be taken as evidence that some "drives or urges" are in play?

Reasons were given, yet conflicted. Isn't reason based on non-contradiction? In any case, my point was that empathy had it's foundations in nature rather than reason. I saw only subjective reasons, and I saw no evidence that a decision could be deduced from a solid premise; (the value of the life of a stranger.)

I believe empathy is our way of respecting the lives of other; of placing a value on them. "Potential value" sounds like rationalization, an attempt to place reason in an area where it holds little sway.

But your latter statement just demonstrates, for those who have advocated this issue as one of relative values,  that such a value judgment in regard to a stranger is precisely what needs to be factored in.

And, with all due respect, you have ignored the responses countering that argument given by a few people on this thread.

Could you expand on this please, as I don't follow you here as to where I ignored evidence countering mine.

[Thoyd Loki 0]

Imagine that you're on your way to the vet because your pet has a life-threatening injury. As you're driving down the street, you see someone being kidnapped, forced into a van by men wearing hoods. If you call the cops and follow the van, you can help free this person but your pet will probably die. Shouldn't your moral obligation to defend freedom outweigh your devotion to your pet? 

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I don't have time to address you whole post at this time, but I can answer this one right away. No! My pet comes first. Just how many obstacles do you want to put in the way of my defense of my top values? Mount them up, my values are clear.

[Thoyd Loki 0]

I don't have time to address you whole post at this time, but I can answer this one right away. No! My pet comes first. Just how many obstacles do you want to put in the way of my defense of my top values? Mount them up, my values are clear.

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I can't leave this answer to stand by itself. This is what I meant when I said that you cannot leave the human elemant out of the equation. Philosophy is abstract principles, ultimately, it becomes detached nonsense if not brought down to real concretes. So, here they are. This is applied philosophy.

My wife and I decided at the start that we were not going to have children. She had her own reasons, and I want to write without interference. But, we both love dogs. We brought our dog, Missy, into our lives the day after we were married. This dog, at the start of her life, attached herself to my wife with a devotion (and an adorable cuteness) of a star-struck child. They have been in love with each other ever since. I dare say if I ever came between them, I may find myself on the sidewalk like Fred Flintstone. That is fine with me, I can't help but to love this dog. She is our daughter, in every way that can matter to us. Some of my favorite times are of us all cuddled on the bed, petting her, scratching her butt, laughing as she leaps off the bed in excitement only to fall down and fly back onto the bed into our arms.

So, I have to ask again: by what moral standard am I to sacrifice this value? Because it would be a sacrifice. A kidnapping? Why not a bomb from North Korea? Same response. Intruder in the home? Same response. A million cries for help? Same response.

I am sensing (and I am going to look for it tomorrow) an intrinsic approach to values at work here. The only other person I have noted here that has brought this "value discussion" down to concretes is write-by.

If we are going to understand abstract, ethic values, we cannot keep them abstract to ourselves. Understand the abstraction, and then apply to the particulars of your life as objectively as possible. Meaning, ultimately, don't keep asking me the same, fundamental question because you'll get the same fundamental answer: my hierarchy of values.

[Elizabeth 0]

The original question as stated: "Would it ever be morally proper to ..." (emphasis added). So sure there is an answer. In fact, some people have answered "yes," and some people have answered "no."

I suppose the difference is whether values are rationally chosen, or chosen otherwise.

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I think the emphasis on "ever" is where I run in to my own dilemma while answering. I know what I would do in this situation.

If I were to replace the word stranger with the idea of human kind, potential, and free will, and compare that value to an animal (even a beloved pet that I would rather spend time with than most human strangers), I do not understand or relate to a value judgment that human life is of lesser value, particularly in a life or death situation.

I am not sure that both answers can be correct on any given individual’s placement of hierarchical values, even if two people say they arrive at their conclusions rationally. Is there an objective answer as to whether human life is of greater value than a pet that does not possess the same potential?

[Erskine Fincher 0]

I don't have time to address you whole post at this time, but I can answer this one right away. No! My pet comes first. Just how many obstacles do you want to put in the way of my defense of my top values? Mount them up, my values are clear.

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Top values? Freedom isn't one of your top values? You don't see any connection between this other person being kidnapped and your own life? I could understand if you said that you would put your wife, or your child, or your best friend ahead of freedom, but... it's... a... DOG.

We brought our dog, Missy, into our lives the day after we were married.

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Here's a question for you. How many dogs did you have to meet and get to know before you realized that this was the dog which you could not live without, the one dog for which you would sacrifice your freedom, your country and a million human lives? What were the character traits that drew you to this particular one, the values that it represented?

When I say that I would let a million people die to save my wife, it's not because she's cute and cuddly and likes it when I scratch behind her ears (although she is and she does). It's because of the human virtues that she embodies: rationality, productivity, independence. It is not a bond formed from animal comfort, it is based on distinctly human virtues. She concretizes my highest abstract values. That is why she can be valued above the abstractions themselves, because the concrete is metaphysically prior to the abstract.

Any competent rational human being embodies human values in a way that a pet never can. Such a person is of greater value to us spiritually, and materially than a pet. He is one of a host of people who make this world a livable place for human beings. What a pet does for us pales by comparison.

It might be my pet, but simply putting 'my' in front of some value does not automatically elevate it above any other value. We see people every day whose value systems are turned upside down because they put important values lower than unimportant ones. The way you have stated your position, it would not matter if you were living in a society of John Galts, you would still choose your pet, simply because it is yours. That's not right. Some values are not optional. Dog vs cat is optional. Rational human vs pet is not.

I am sensing (and I am going to look for it tomorrow) an intrinsic approach to values at work here.

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Let me know if you find it, because I would really like to know if that is what is going on. In discussing this with my wife last night, I wondered whether I was drifting into intrinsicism, but my conclusion right now is that I am not.

I don't believe that human lives are of value regardless of whether they benefit me. I believe they may benefit me regardless of whether I know them.

I don't believe that the life of another human being is of greater worth than all of my values. I believe it is of greater worth than the life of a pet.

I don't believe that the life of every human being is more valuable than my pet. I believe that it is better to assume that it is and risk the value of the pet, than assume that it isn't and risk the value of the human.

I don't believe that it is always best to make that assumption. I believe that it is the proper assumption to make when one is living in a rational society.

Whether USA 2005 is such a society is a question for another thread, and it's not a question I can answer.

[Erskine Fincher 0]

Is there an objective answer as to whether human life is of greater value than a pet that does not possess the same potential?

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Human life is not, but human life is. By that I mean not just any human life, but a life that is distinctly human, i.e., rational. I don't think anyone arguing in favor of the pet vs. the stranger would say that he would still value the pet more vs. someone he knew to be a rational individual. Reason is our highest moral value, and anyone who embodies it should be worth more to us than a non-thinking animal no matter how cuddly or obedient it is. As long as it is proper to assume that the stranger is a rational being, choosing the human over the pet is the moral thing to do. It would be a sacrifice of values otherwise. If I let my pet drown, and then discovered afterwards that the person was an idiot, I would deeply regret it. That is nothing compared to what I would feel if I let the human drown and discovered afterward that he was someone I would have admired.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

So, you view "empathy" in the same vein as, say, hunger? The problem is, these "drives or urges" are always based on some aspect of physiology. What is the physiological basis of "empathy?" And, while we are at it, if you are going to pursue this line of argument, please define just what you mean by "empathy."

Not quite like hunger. I liken it more to a psychological need, like the need to be loved, or to love, or have companionship.

But psychology deals with the conscious and subconscious mind, and since we are born tabula rasa it is we who fill our mind with ideas, and the ideas that we hold are the basis for our values, and our emotions are a reflection of those values. So, yet again, we see your attempt to divorce empathy from values results in divorcing emotions from reason, since our values are based on our ideas through a process of reason.

Who is this WE you are referring to? A number of people on this thread have presented their reasons, some rather clearly. And, regardless, since when is "trouble laying out the REASONS" for any actions to be taken as evidence that some "drives or urges" are in play?

Reasons were given, yet conflicted. Isn't reason based on non-contradiction?

Yes, but, smiley aside, non-contradiction here impies that at least one of the contradictory views is wrong, but the other may be right. In any case, none of this should ever be taken as evidence that it is "drives or urges" that explain our values and actions rather than choices and ideas executed and selected by a process of reason.

But your latter statement just demonstrates, for those who have advocated this issue as one of relative values,  that such a value judgment in regard to a stranger is precisely what needs to be factored in.

And, with all due respect, you have ignored the responses countering that argument given by a few people on this thread.

Could you expand on this please, as I don't follow you here as to where I ignored evidence countering mine.

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Well, several people gave more detailed and passionate responses, but for a simple and succinct version just read my formulation here -->←

[Stephen Speicher 0]

If I were to replace the word stranger with the idea of human kind, potential, and free will, and compare that value to an animal (even a beloved pet that I would rather spend time with than most human strangers), I do not understand or relate to a value judgment that human life is of lesser value, particularly in a life or death situation.

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This then seems to be your answer to the original question of this thread. I take your answer as "no."

[HaloNoble6 0]

Would it ever be morally proper to love a pet so much as to value its life over that of a human stranger? Given a scenario where both are drowning and you can only save one, and granted that you do not know and cannot discern anything significant about the stranger, can you value your pet over the stranger and choose to save the animal?

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Given the conditions of the question, the only act that expresses a love of life is the act of saving the stranger. Stranger, every time. Here are my own thoughts.

It seems like the question is deliberately setup so that one does not know a priori the likelihood of this stranger being a hero, and so the question seems to be: based on the standard of one's life, what is the good here, acting for the chance that this stranger is a hero, or acting for the value of one's pet (who has no chance of being a hero in the true meaning of the term)? Weighing "chance of stranger being hero" vs. "the value of a pet," I don't see the act of saving a pet as life-loving.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Given the conditions of the question, the only act that expresses a love of life is the act of saving the stranger.  Stranger, every time.  Here are my own thoughts. 

It seems like the question is deliberately setup so that one does not know a priori the likelihood of this stranger being a hero, and so the question seems to be: based on the standard of one's life, what is the good here, acting for the chance that this stranger is a hero, or acting for the value of one's pet (who has no chance of being a hero in the true meaning of the term)?  Weighing "chance of stranger being hero" vs. "the value of a pet," I don't see the act of saving a pet as life-loving.

HaloNoble6, are our values determined by the abstract standard of being "life-loving" or are they determined by how well they serve our own life?

[HaloNoble6 0]

Yes, by how they serve our own life. My thought process in my post was that "the chance of saving a hero" can generally serve the life of man more so than any actual value a pet can. Am I wrong somewhere here?

[HaloNoble6 0]

My thought process in my post was that "the chance of saving a hero" can generally serve the life of man more so than any actual value a pet can.

Let me change "can generally" to "always" in the line above.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Yes, by how they serve our own life.  My thought process in my post was that "the chance of saving a hero" can generally serve the life of man more so than any actual value a pet can.  Am I wrong somewhere here?

Weighing the potential value of a stranger against the actual value of a pet is a judgment that you make according to the rational hierarchy of your values, and if you make that judgment rationally I do not see how you can be wrong in doing so. I was simply pointing out that the standard you used in your initial explanation was not one that was tied directly to your own values.