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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!gatech!owens
From: owens@gatech.UUCP (Gerald R. Owens)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The value of life (and other sundry stuff)
Message-ID: <6090@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Apr-84 08:52:27 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.6090
Posted: Sat Apr 14 08:52:27 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 08:34:28 EST
References: <6696@watrose.UUCP>
Organization: Georgia Tech School of ICS, Atlanta
Lines: 39


Something was itching at the back of my mind regarding Mr. Tanguay's
definition of the value of a human being, until it clicked a few
days ago.  He states:

	 The value of a thing is equal to the amount of sorrow its
	 removal from existence will cause.

All fine and good, But what is so special about person X if their
sorrow for another person Y's death makes Y valuable, but if nobody
values X's life, that X has no value?  I.e. How can a person give
somebody else "value" (it's not intrinsic, by the above definition)
if they themselves have no value unless someone else would be sorrowful
for them, and they, in turn, would have no value unless that first
person valued them.  What the heck is so special about "somebody else"?
(presumably, a person cannot give value to themselves, mainly because
they would be dead, and so obviously cannot sorrow for themselves).
Also, there is the convenient clique effect.  Given a group of people who
value each other, but nobody outside the group likes anybody in the
group, it would be bad to kill ONE member of the group (the rest would
be sorrowful), but OK if you kill everyone (nobody would be sorrowful,
since the ones who would be are conveniently dead).

I hasten to add that I do not think that Mr. Tanguay intended the
clique effect.  He made the definition to fit the case of abortion,
and that is just fine when one wants to define a non-observable
such as value.  It is proper, however, to question the
propriety of a definition if it's use leads us to regard as ok
things that we have agreed beforehand are not (such as genocide, where
the extinction of a hated race not only would not cause sorrow, but
cause rejoicing over the plunder that the unmourned-for victims left
behind.).  The good thing I find about net.abortion is that many
minds are brought to bear on a particular idea, bringing different
viewpoints to it, so that ideas that look good on the surface are
probed for flaws.  I echo Mr. Anderson's sentiment:  Let's keep the
discussion up, I'm learning.

				Gerald Owens
				Owens@gatech