Your sacred cow is in mortal danger Provoking the herd since 2002 

home

 Let's talk about ..
Be Offended - Be Very Offended Shoot the cow! Shoot the cow!  

S-e-x
Religion
Politics





 You Asked for It!
» Value Judgments - The cost of a human life   2004-02-11 08:58 Bombadil

One problem with this valuation: it posits a value based on one transaction (say, buying an airbag).

But we make transactions like this all the time, usually without any idea of how effective our safety measures are, or sometimes even how much they cost. For example, I replace the battery in my smoke detector every year. It costs me less than $1 - how likely is it to save my life? I keep a shotgun next to my bed - it cost me $125. Does it have a positive effect on my personal safety or a negative one? Supposing that by making such purchases I have implied a self-value doesnt hold up - though I will concede that you could use my perception of the risks and costs of these things in the formula, rather than their actual risks and costs.

Even if you adjust for perceived benefits and costs, and take the aggregate of many such transactions, the fact that virtually no-one would trade their life for the calculated sum calls it into question. For myself, I would not trade my life for $1 trillion US ... far more than your formula would render my valuation.