WASHINGTON — As the players here remake the nation’s vast regulatory system, they have been grappling with a subject that is more the province of poets and philosophers than bureaucrats : what is the value of a human life?
The answer determines how much spending the government should require to prevent a single death.
To protests from business and praise from unions, environmentalists and consumer groups, one agency after another has ratcheted up the price of life, justifying tougher — and more costly — standards.
The Transportation Department has used values of around $6 million to justify several recent decisions to impose regulations that the Bush administration had rejected as too expensive, like requiring stronger roofs on cars.
And the numbers may keep climbing. In December, the E.P.A said it might set the value of preventing cancer deaths 50 percent higher than other deaths, because cancer kills slowly. A report last year financed by the Department of Homeland Security suggested that the value of preventing deaths from terrorism might be 100 percent higher than other deaths.
The more there are the less they’re worth. The population is hyperinflating. If someone is stupid enough to place monetary value on the lives of spiritually aware beings then they can abide by the following IMHO.
I understand that if the available gold were distributed evenly to the worlds population each would receive about 3/4 oz. at present levels of supply.
At the present price that would be about $1031
I think that anyone that suggests putting a price on life is perhaps worth a tad less…
Given the fact that value is subjective, there can be no true or correct answer to the question, “What is the value of a human life?”
Does this treat all causes of death equally? How does one determine what actually causes a death? I mean, is there any distinction made between proximate and ultimate causes?
It’s equivocating. Are we talking about the economic value of a life, or about the philosophical value of a life? The former depends on the persons training and usefulness to society, the latter is obviously subjective. This whole question wouldn’t even be a problem in a free market. The value would be communicated tacitly through market signals without us ever knowing it. It’s only when the government gets into the business of centrally managing stuff like environmental regulation that we have to pick an arbitrary number. But it’s impossible to enumerate because there’s not one number. It’s really a silly question, it makes it seem as if there’s a trade off between human life and money. And if we only set that number high enough it justifies saving more people. But that calculation doesn’t take the opportunity cost of saving people into account. The cost of life is not money, but life. Maybe the environmental regulation that saves a hundred people kills two hundred because that many could have been saved if the resources would have been put into health care instead of being the opportunity cost of environmental regulation. Either way, picking the wrong number for the value of life kills people. And the state can’t calculate the right number, because of economic calculation.
No, it’s not. The value of people in terms of anything is consistently rising.