Should people put the value of life into monetary value or should life be kept solely as an emotional quantity? People and societies throughout the ages have been trying to answer the problem of putting the value of life into terms of dollar bills. The ancient Egyptians buried their dead with all of their worldly belongings. They believed a person’s monetary worth on Earth was over, and they should take all of that earthly worth with them to the afterlife. Modern day Americans are different from the Egyptians. Today people believe that the families of the dead should be compensated for “their” loss.
It is true that life is a precious commodity much like a diamond. But unlike a diamond, life has no set monetary value. But today’s
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Is it more important in society to “make babies” than it is to just live your life? What about people who haven’t yet had a chance to start a family because their lives were cut so short? Now all that money sounds like a blessing, doesn’t it?
Well now that you have your foundation money, now you have to subtract the money you get from life insurance, pension, Social Security death benefits, and worker’s compensation. After these “little” subtractions, you now have the total that you are going to receive from the government’s fund. Now you are going to be hit with new questions after all this, for example is a rich man with high life insurance, high pension, and no children worth less than a poor man with no life insurance, no job, and ten children (Ripley 13)? The answer to all these questions is no. The lives of all people should be valued at the same price, if you are to set a price at all. A rich man should be the same as a poor man; a woman with no children should have the same life value as a woman with seven kids. The point is that if the government is going to put a monetary value of a human life, than it should be the same for everyone. “We hold these truths to self-evidence: that all men are created equal” (King Jr.).
There are many arguments against putting a money value on human life and two of the most impressive come from Alephonsion Deng and Lance Armstrong. Alephonsion
In today’s society, people put money on expensive or luxurious items in order to have a better appearance and to bring them happiness. Walker concerned about the society's definition of “ Valuable” and how human put values on objects. She points out people should place value on love, family and friends instead of diamond, gold and other materialistic things.
Monetary value is mainly determined on things that are worth money. People believe that having a lot of money and other items that cost them a lot of money will put them on a more richer scale. They may also believe that items that are worth a lot are more valuable to them and that some other people think that a memory of a special person isn’t worth a lot especially when you lost them. An example of monetary value is in a photo essay named, “Fit for a King: Treasures of Tutankhamun”, this essay is about what King Tutankhamun and what he wanted to be buried with what he thought was valuable to him and what he would need in his afterlife. In the photo essay it says he was buried with objects such as the Cobra Uraeus Diadem which is a crown, Alabaster Funerary Barge and that is a vessel to hold perfume, four golden fans, and a Canopic Chest which was used to hold the internal organs of the
What scale is being used to determine what a life is essentially worth? And who determines this? For most of our lives, we have grown up being taught that ‘All lives are created equally’ while this is important it is not entirely true. You would think that when you die your family could finally be at peace with no worries or fears but they tend to worry how you’re valued is being determined by law. I believe that everyone should be treated equally, even after death.
In today’s society, we should value life not by how much money we have or how much we are worth but by how much we enjoy life and everyone in it. It shouldn 't take the death of a loved one for us to realize everyday is valuable. We should
Is it morally correct to put a price tag on a life? Your initial thought was probably no, lives should not be categorized into a monetary value, but take a moment to dive deeper into all of the research on this topic, it soon becomes apparent that it is necessary to apply a price figure for each of our lives as some people are essentially worth more than others. Since the beginning of time, people have been debating this topic, taking longer than normal, after all, it is a sensitive subject. Due to the sensitivity of this matter, it has taken us a plethora of years to find a balance between what is morally correct to give someone for their late loved one and what will not put the government into a deeper debt.
To put a value on life can be immoral. But i believe that it is not bad that the government is handing our reparations to help the victims. “Why are you demeaning the memory of my husband?”, said Kenneth Finberg. I think that trying to give money for the lost one is not a way of replacing them, its to help the victims loved ones to get the necessary
On the one hand, both cases point to the fundamental value system upon which a healthcare system is based. Is quality of life more important than quantity of life lived, or is the reverse the case? Each person will answer this question differently, based on cultural background and religious upbringing. In fact, religion played a major role in the Terri Schiavo case. The patient came from a religious family, and her family of origin believed that it was unethical to remove a feeding tube because it
It appears upright to that a life of a human is past all financial worth. Somewhat it is. On the other hand, there is boundaries the public and people spend to save lives.
“And then one student said that happiness is what happens when you go to bed on the hottest night of the summer, a night so hot you can’t even wear a tee-shirt and you sleep on top of the sheets instead of under them, although try to sleep is probably more accurate. And then at some point late, late, late at night, say just a bit before dawn, the heat finally breaks and the night turns into cool and when you briefly wake up, you notice that you’re almost chilly, and in your groggy, half-consciousness, you reach over and pull the sheet around you and just that flimsy sheet makes it warm enough and you drift back off into a deep sleep. And it’s that reaching, that gesture, that reflex we have to pull what’s warm - whether it’s something or someone
However, Life is priceless and each is too unique to become a commodity. Throughout the ages, societies and it’s people have attempted to answer this thought provoking question: How can we compensate death by considering life in monetary values? In today’s society, people that have experienced the loss of a loved one believe that it is impossible to put a price on someone’s life.
Value at the store is a big difference from the value of a person’s life, because one has a price tag like a dollar. The other is a person’s life of what they have done, and what they have accomplished, or what they are valuable for. An insect should have the same value as a lion, because if an ant is killed nobody cares, but in some places if a lion gets killed there are fines for that. On Earth the most important value is a human life, but some people take that for granet, and murder people like there value is nothing.
To determine the value of one’s life, must one base it off of financial background, the love of family and friends, one’s own personal passions, or whether living is worth more than dying? Maybe the value of one’s life is worth more based on their career, their social lives, their hobbies, or their view on death itself, but, however one determines how life should be measured, their value of life can only be measured for oneself, not others.
The fact within our society is that all human life has value. The real arguments comes
Twice used by the renowned author, Oscar Wilde, in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray as well as in his drama Lady Windermere’s Fan, the cynical notion that “nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing" has pervaded our undeniably quantitatively-driven society. Certainly, the monetary view of things cannot replace aesthetic, moral or rational conscience. However, attempting to separate the pursuit of absolute truth from economic endeavors altogether is equally as detrimental as judging significance based on a price tag. Evidently, this discrepancy beckons drastic revisions of conventional economic notions resolving the major questions concerning the nature and origin of value. Marilynne Robinson in her piece, “Night Thoughts of Baffled Humanist,” supports the popular idea that value in the universe is created through sentient “mind to mind” human relations. Conversely, Mary Midgley in her article, “Duties Concerning Islands: Of Rights & Obligations,” finds fault with this convention suggesting that non-human entities have intrinsic value in themselves. Although these two seemingly differ in their respective conclusions, Midgley and Robinson can be harmonized by the fact that both their theories suggest that value genesis is designated by individuals in accordance to their personal moral context.
A large controversy among families and the government is how to value a person’s life. After the 9/11 tragedy many people were unhappy with how some people were compensated more than others. The amount of life insurance a person receives should be based on their success. The amount of money a family receives should just be able to sustain their same way of life. Some argue that all people should be paid equally, however higher-paid people should get more money because they earned it. Roger Ebert believed you should only worry about things that you enjoy and value in life. This will not help families after a death, though, with a funeral and other financial costs.