Does human life have INHERENT value?

[Esquilax]

I don't think anything has 'inherent' value.  Value by definition is a judgment about something by a mind, as in a mind is required to place the value in the first place and thus the 'value' of something isn't inherent to the object/idea itself.

And a nice demonstration of this is all the christian apologists out there who assert that without god, life has no inherent value, which by corollary implies that the inherent value of life is dependent on god, making it a judgment of god's mind, and not inherent at all, as human beings attained their value via god, and there are circumstances under which a human being would not have that value in the view of the apologist.

[robvalue]

The thing I really, really don't get is when it's suggested this life has no meaning without an afterlife. That's so totally the wrong way round, if anything. It makes me sad when I hear of people killing themselves as a shortcut to the afterlife because they genuinely believe they are headed straight there. If that belief hadn't been implanted, it would never have happened; at least there would be one less reason for it to happen. They have thrown away the only life we can be sure that we have, on a promise that is made frequently but which no one can actually demonstrate is true.

The thing is, I can't say I blame them. If my wife and I really believed that, as much as we believed getting on a bus would get us into town, we'd probably do it too. Why stick around here in this shitty preamble? It's no surprise religion often tries to dissuade you from this by setting rules against it. "It's real, sure, but you can't just go straight there."

[Dystopia]

From a scientific perspective all lives and living things have the same value - This is to say, none. Morally of course I think human life as value, at least because I'm alive and I enjoy living, and I don't think other people should be able to kill me just because they want to and it amuses them.

The truth is it depends on the historical and cultural context - Everything Hitler did was perfectly legal because the constitution allowed it, so as long as you have a constitution that allows the legislation to be passed, everything can be valued as written in the text.

[abaris]

Everything Hitler did was perfectly legal because the constitution allowed it, so as long as you have a constitution that allows the legislation to be passed, everything can be valued as written in the text.

The constitution most certainly didn't allow what Hitler did. On the surface they still had the constitution of Weimar, since through the whole 12 years it hadn't been revoked, and that document didn't allow for concentration camps indefinite incarceration and outright murder.

That's why most of the time Hitler ruled by Führer orders or word of mouth. He just didn't have a law to back him.

[robvalue]

I don't think my avatar thinks life is valuable. I'm not responsible for him though.

Violence incoming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPAjlHuiz7U

[Cephus]

Nope.  For a thing to have value, it has to have a valuer.  Value is subjective.  Without someone to assign value, a thing has no inherent value.

[ignoramus]

Alex, don't the elements have inherent atomic mass relative to each other.
An alien race should have the same periodic table as we have in this universe.

Isn't pure mathematics by its very nature inherent. Otherwise we couldn't have the concept of 2 plus 2?

[Anomalocaris]

You are confusing physical attribute with worth.

[Ravenshire]

And which was it, absolute self defense, or justifiable war, that made it okay for the Catholic Church to try it's very own hand in burning hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of witches and heretics when the Catholic Church actually had the power to call up holy wars and pronounce death sentences?

As to the last few popes, it was very noble of those holy fathers to abhor killing by others a coupLe of hundred years AFTER progress of humanity through the Age of Enlightenment, which the Catholic Church abhorred also,  had in most places deprived the Catholic Church of its traditional power to call up holy wars and pronounce death sentences.

It was never ok for those people to do that. They acted wrongly, and against Catholic doctrine.

But isn't the pope infallible when it comes to church doctrine?

[Jenny A]

Nope.  For a thing to have value, it has to have a valuer.  Value is subjective.  Without someone to assign value, a thing has no inherent value.

Or to put it another way inherent value is a contradiction in terms.