Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
I find the numbers game entirely morally unsatisfying in all cases where death is concerned. Whether there are fifty million lions or one, it couldn't possibly make me care more about that life than a human being's.
Similarly, and maybe more poignantly, the number of humans alive doesn't somehow devalue human life. If there were ten billion of us instead of seven, that would not make your life less valuable. People are not a commodity.
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I think that you're too quick to dismiss the idea of measuring the value of human life versus the value of animal (or even plant) life (especially in our current circumstances where humanity poses serious threat to thousands of other species.)
For example, let's frame the discussion in a classic moral dilrmma: the railway man. A train carrying x number of lions is hurtling down the tracks. At some point, the tracks diverge: one path leads to a brick wall (and certain death for all of the lions on board the train) and the other path leads to a clear path with one human being tied to the track (certain death for him or her if the train is diverted to that track.) What should the railway man (responsible for choosing which track the train should proceed on) do? Morally, what number of lion lives equal one human life? What if evrey last lion (30,000) is on the train and only one (of 7 billion humans) is on the track?
At some point, surely, it becomes a difficult decision for the railway man.