Price of a life

On certain points, humans are proudly illogical. The most prominent example of this phenomenon is the supreme value of a single human life. We live in a world defined by limited resources, such as food, water, oil (except in the Middle East), and homes (except in the U.S.). Our need for these resources means that there is technically a price for which one would not pay to save lives.  Essentially, one has to weigh the detriment to society to the potential of that one life.


To simplify the matter for the sake of argument, let's say that there is a child that is certain to die shortly were it not for a magical machine we invented that is guaranteed to save him. However, the machine will only work if we stuff into it half of the world's food supply (it's magical; it can handle it). We wouldn't be willing to pay the price, which in this case would lead to billions of deaths. Even though we had the ability to save a life, we would choose not to.


How does this apply to real life? These types of decisions are made every day by the F.D.A. and other medical standards boards. Poor risk/benefit ratios cause the premature demise of thousands of would-be miracle drugs every year and many already approved procedures can not be performed as ubiquitously as would be most beneficial due to the high costs involved. Would a nationally mandated annual PET scan significantly improve cancer detection rates, and save millions of lives? Yes. But the cost isn't worth the benefit. The machinery is extraordinarily expensive, the radiation would actually cause cancer in a very small subset of the population, and the inconvenience of disrupting people's lives and work would further damage the already unstable economy. It would increase unemployment, cause more people to rely on government help, the government would go further into debt, stock markets would plunge, financial meltdown, panic in the streets. Bad things ensue. And all because we wanted to combat cancer as best we can.


Like all animals, humans are evolutionarily programmed to want to perpetuate our species. Primarily we desire to pass on our specific genes, but we also desire to keep our species dominant. A more dominant species has fewer predators and better access to resources, thus making it easier for individuals to pass on their genes.


Some say that evolution is "dead" due to the modern trend of more educated couples having fewer children than less educated couples. However, there is still a self-preservation instinct at work here. Most people choose to have few or no children because it is a strain on personal and/or societal resources. A single mother of three will make every attempt not to have more children because she cannot adequately support four children on her current pay. Alternatively, a well-off couple that decides to only have one child, may be doing so to have a lesser impact on an ever more populated planet, thus making a personal sacrifice for the betterment of the species. In essence, people make the same calculation as to whether to create a life as to whether to save one.


I only mean to point out that although we glorify efforts to save every human life (excluding cases involving abortion or the death penalty, neither of which I mean to fully address on at this time), there is actually an amount we will not pay to do so, either for personal or societal reasons. People make such judgments every day and there is nothing wrong with that. However, I do think that people could try to apply this argument to eugenics and abortion, and would cross a very clear moral boundary.


As far as abortion goes societally acceptable defenses usually revolve around the mother's safety and self-determination. Saying that the need for an abortion is based on the desire to conserve resources is frowned upon mostly because it is exactly why most people dislike the idea of abortion: it is a way for people that have unprotected sex to have all the fun and none of the responsibility that comes with sexual relations. (please note that I am not touching on arguments and rationales dealing with whether a fetus is a person; again I do not want to fully broach that topic in this post).


Anyone who has seen GATTACA has contemplated the troubling moral dilemma of variations on eugenics. If, as mentioned above, natural selection is dead, then it is logical to desire improvement of our species by some other means, for Hitler it was killing or dehumanizing non-Aryans, for Khan it will be killing and dehumanizing non-genetically engineered persons in the 23rd century. But this logically valid argument is morally unsound, as evidenced by both of my previous examples being "bad guys."


Having taken my fair share of university philosophy classes, I can firmly say that I hate when arguments come down to moral beliefs. It just seems like a cop-out. For example, let's say an explorer came across a previously undiscovered society that indifferently killed-off those in its population that were deemed inferior. The explorer, being horrified at this society's base principles, decides to try to explain to their leader why eugenics is wrong. However, the explorer's argument inevitably breaks down to "It's just wrong!" The society-leader, feeling no such moral imperative, is perfectly just in justifying the deaths for the improvement of the lives of future generations.


Moral convictions only gain credence when the vast majority of the population shares the same belief (or when burning bushes tell you so), otherwise mass murderers would have a much better chance in court by arguing that by their beliefs murder is morally praiseworthy. If however there were a large society that truly believed that eugenics is fine, we'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason it's wrong other than it just is.


An interesting evolutionary argument is that natural selection thrives on diversity, and even to remove those members seen at weak would be to lessen the degree to which the next generation can diverge from the previous. In fact, evolutionary biologists have theorized that the most drastic changes in phenotype happen after many unexpressed silent mutations are suddenly made visible by one all-important mutation that labels the previously unexpressed region as a coding region. This means that a genetic line that seems to be less desirable could actually be carrying an as of yet unexpressed genetic change that will more than compensate for the other weaknesses once it is presented. And through cross-breeding, all of these strengths could be reconsolidated.


An example would be that a sub-species of animal grows progressively slower at running, but suddenly develops wings. Such an animal would only need to survive the intervening generations of less than ideal genetic make-up before being suddenly transformed into the cream of the genetic crop.


The inherent problem with all societal beliefs founded upon evolutionary data, is that it only applies to the fraction of the population that is able and willing to breed. Thus a weak fifty-year old woman that is not doing anything to improve society has no evolutionary defense, but our morals still say that she deserves to live. Again, this all comes back to the start of this meandering post; on certain points, humans are proudly illogical. And though I don't understand why we hold some of our illogical beliefs, I am truly proud to hold them.