One human life is of course worth more than a billion dollars. But people get killed every day for a lot less.
...and what if the person we elect to save becomes the next Hitler? lol. This is an argument to which there is no answer. With limited information, either side can be argued with relevant evidence to support their conclusion. The argument itself has to be based on assumptions, and thus it is inherently flawed given the scope and context. You could either be killing a potential mass murderer, or the person who cures cancer...
My only thought on this is that NO LIFE can be REPLACED! It is impossible. No two people are alike! Death is final money isn't. Money can be replaced. End of conversation.
An individual may be entirely unique, but if they're a 'bad' person, why should they deserve to live? It doesn't matter if one person is wasted so long as the money is put to good use - preventing the future devastation of this planet.
So, you'd be willing to die if it meant someone else would donate one billion dollars to prevent the future destruction of this planet?
There is a big 'if' to it. If it were that simple, there wouldn't be half the problems in this world there are right now. I'm not supporting the fact that one should save a murderer from death sentence. However, forgiveness is always the better alternative.
Money cannot simply be replaced either. A billion dollars does not just arise from nowhere, it comes from the sweat and effort of millions of people. How many lives go into the generation of that billion dollars? It may not always be possible to track that down. We tend to look only at immediate consequences, and often fail to look past them to the broader indirect consequences. If I am to understand the original intent of this thread correctly, I believe it is exactly that. There is no absolute answer to the dilemna, and it is truly necessary to diligently weigh all the information available to determine which alternative is ultimately more damaging. There are entire college courses dedicated to looking past the obvious outcomes. They fall under the headings of Ethics, or Critical Thinking, or similarly abstract-sounding titles. They are also some of the more difficult and lowest scoring courses in most college curriculums.
I disagree completely that there is no absolute answer to this question. Human life is priceless; a single one is worth more than all the money in the world.
The question can be answered. You just can't answer it when its worded as follows: Is it worth some random human beings life to get one billion dollars when you don't have any idea who the person is or what the money will be used for. In other words, a + b = k. What is K? Its a pointless question cause all the information actually neccessary to answer it isn't there. There's no way to do a cost benifet analysis. The problem isn't in the answer its in the question. I'll trade a drug addict or someone whose rotting in prison with no chance of parole for a billion dollars since they're just a drain on society. I will not trade the mother of little billy and annie or the owner of the battery store down the street whose never done an evil deed in his life for any amount of money.
Can you honestly sit there and say that you would rather have one million dollars and have someone die and know that somewhere out there, no matter how bad the person is, someone is sufferring due to that persons death? Every person that dies has at least one person that loves them, some of them have children and wives, husbands. Can you honestly say that you having a million dollars is better than that child having it's mother or father? Or a mother/father losing their son/daughter just so you can have a million dollars? I would rather live in poverty for eternity struggling every day to survive than me a millionaire and know that a life was lost because of that. A life (any human life) is worth far more than money! I know there are people out there that have done a lot of wrong, but they have also done some good in someone elses life and that is all that matters at the end of the day. Not money, not material possessions, but peoples lives. I would rather see someone live at least one more day than receive a million dollars! A human life is far more important and sorry but people really have lost sense of that in my opinion. THat is why there are so many wars and famine. Because no one cares about each other anymore, they only care about that extra dollar and filling their house full of **** that they don't need and gaining more and more worldy possessions. Stop living in a fantasy and wake up to realise that a human life is far more important than money already! Every life that is brought into this world holds a purpose. They all make a difference and though there are those that do wrong by others, they also do good by some people as well. Every person has a goodness in their heart somewhere, it is just it isn't always seen nor shown. But you look into their private life, and behind every dark soul there is someone that they are helping, someone that they are loving and someones life they are making a good difference in and someone that they hold dear to their heart and can't live without!
I'm talking in terms of objective pros and cons of trading a life for a billion dollars. If someone gave me the opportunity and said I can pick the person who dies I probably wouldn't do it because of the obvious moral and ethical travisties.
Cost benefit analysis is done everyday by the military and insurance companies. The military does a cost benefit analysis where the number of dead, limbs lost, eyes blinded, and other wounds are counted as well as equipment damaged or lost. Battle plans are based on such analysis where dollar amounts are on the scale also. Insurance companies do the same by betting you won't have anything happen while you pay premiums betting something will happen and then they will pay you. They pay bonuses to those who deny claims to people. A billion dollars can fund a lot of war as well as pad the pockets of the insurance company owners and actually do on an ongoing basis. As for the humans who die as a result of war or of denied claims it is considered justified.
