Value of Life?

platinum87 said:
Everybody has there own value of life. "Life" has no inherit value, its worth is derived from others or its effects, either direct or indirect. Depending on the perspective you wish to assume, the value of a human life or that of any other lifeforms changes, usually drastically.
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**** me !!! are you back on your medication or summat? .... I thought that you would just kill it if it moves .... ;)
 
I try not to kill anything unless I have to for food. I suppose I could eat veg but it's in my genes to like eating meat. Perhaps even enjoy killing stuff to some extent with all my manly testosterone but it isn't such an overwelming urge as a bacon butty.
 
Reldar said:
So what is the value if life based upon?
Size? Intelligence? Looks?

Why is it that 99% of people would feel next to nothing for killing a fly. But at the same time feel extremely guilty for killing a cat?
They're both living creatures, they're both one life. What's the difference?

When people discover an ant nest on their property, they may attempt to destroy/kill the ants without a second thought.
Pouring boiling water down holes causing the suffering of hundreds of ants. Yet most people don't care.

If they had a cage full of dogs and had to pour boiling water on them until they died it would be a entirely different story.
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I think our current society bases the value of life mainly on how much we empathise with, or are attracted to the animal in question (maybe how human it looks?). Polar bears can look quite cute, and they do stuff we recognise - playing, hunting for stuff, swimming etc. Jellyfish, however are totally alien to us, and don't look at all familiar or human, and many people find them quite scary and repulsive. Also, nobody I know floats around underwater waiting for food to swim into their tentacle things, which makes it quite hard to empathise with them. Imo that's we don't see many 'save the jellyfish' campaigns, but we see loads of polar bear ones. (I don't actually know if jellyfish will benefit or lose out due to climate change, but it seems like a good example).

I think actually valuing a life on a purely objective, non emotional basis we might think mainly about an animals capacity for emotions, or creativity, or whatever (maybe puzzle solving ability? - But the type of puzzle would bias some species over others, so this would be hard). However, not only would gauging if an animal had any of these attributes would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, but these are still things which we, as humans would think of as valuable, but the majority of life on earth may not.

So in fact, 'properly' valuing life is probably impossible, and going with the 'dogs and cats are more valuable than an entire ant colony' way of thinking seems like the only realistic course of action*. Maybe just acting 'naturally' is the best thing - kill what you want and don't kill stuff you can't/don't want to kill. After all, humans are an evolved form of animal, and it was natural selection that produced us.


*to avoid getting flamed by society( - Nobody cares if you dump an ant colony into a bin), and also because putting e.g. ants in front of cats would probably make more people angry than the other way round, and we do live in a democracy after all, even if the members of the democracy aren't quite sure what it is that makes them feel something, they should be able to have their 'natural' desires embodied (in the form of animal cruelty legislation) if they want them to be.
 
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doofer said:
Can anyone honestly admit with hand-on-heart they don't actually enjoy killing Wasps? :D
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Yes. I don't enjoy killing anything and I consider a sign of a personality disorder to do so.

I'll kill animals for food (although I don't have to because other people do it for me), for defence (never needed that in England) or when they're primitive pests I can't get rid of otherwise (which hasn't happened yet).

I shoo wasps out of a window. I rescue spiders from the bath with some toilet roll. I hardly ever even see a fly in my home, because the spiders eat them very quickly.

If I have another choice, I won't kill. If I do kill, it's with regret.
 
if it screams or bleeds people feel compassionate about it.

that's why vegetarians are happy eating fish but they go blue in the face if you talk to them about steaks.
 
I really don't see the point in killing something unless there is a need. Eg food, risk to your health etc.

But to kill something for fun, or sport? I just don't see the point.
 
spleenharvester said:
I don't kill flies etc for the simple reason that the ensuing mess is unpleasant
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Same, but moths are quite possibly the worst, they're all unassuming but if you squash them they just explode in to a puff of weird powder and smear all the way up the wall.

I don't kill them but I do catch them and then chuck 'em out the window.
 
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