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Value of Life: Empathy Without Value Judgements

BY: T. Franklin Murphy | March 2017

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We have no appropriate measurements for human value. We shouldn't dismiss other's suffering because we don't value their lives. Their lives have great value.

This person is worth a million bucks; but that person over there is only worth one thousand. Placing a monetary value on human life sounds ludicrous. But value is given to both; just exchanged on different markets. We evaluate worth using comparative judgments. “This is good because it is better than that.” We assign value through comparisons. Determining value for a bushel of corn or an hour of skilled labor may be effective; but comparisons fail when measuring personal-worth. People possess too many variables, valuation changes with the ever-changing criteria. But many remain perfectly comfortable saying, “He’s good; and she’s bad.”

By what criteria do we determine the value of a person? And who is qualified to make these constricting valuations? We need to catch the ignorant judgments while still bouncing in the mind before they drift off our tongues hurting others and exposing our over-biased minds.

Key Definition:

A value judgement is a subjective assessment of the worth, quality, goodness, evil, etc., of something or someone.

"The value of life can be measured by how many times your soul has been deeply stirred."
Soichiro Honda

One person is not of greater value than another. We all just are. We live, we breathe, we feel pain, and we feel joy. We exist. Is my joy more important than the joy of another? Does my pain hurt more than his pain? I feel my personal pain and joy more forcefully than I feel other’s pain and joy; but conversely, they feel their experience sharper than they possibly could experience mine. The experience, whether mine or yours, doesn’t diminish the importance of the experience.

"We judge and place an abstract, personal value on other people and things."
Kevin Mangelschots | Healthy Body at Home

By freeing ourselves from determining human value, we clean the lens, opening a more diverse experience. Our defenses fade. With clearer vision, we are more likely to catch ourselves before dismissing the importance of another person’s suffering.

Key Concept:

Functionally, governments and business place a dollar value on the worth of a single human life. Morally speaking, placing a finite dollar amount on a living breathing human is impossible—and wrong.

Excusing Lack of Empathy By Harshly Judging a Person's Worth

We often show a propensity to excuse lack of empathy by discovering a cause; they have a skinned knee because they ran too fast. A mentality (a defense mechanism to create separation) distancing us from suffering. The wealthy disregard the suffering of the poor by citing they are lazy, the misfortunate disregard the destitute because they use drugs. The religious dismiss the unrighteous, and the unrighteous dismiss the self-righteous.

Everyone dividing and dismissing; it makes me sick (yes, I realize the irony, as I divide the empathetic from the judgmental in this sentence).

"The human brain processes the experience of empathy – the ability to understand another person’s pain – in a similar way to the experience of physical pain."
Rebecca S. Dewey | The Conversation

Pain is Pain

Just because there is a cause, we shouldn’t devalue the suffering—the pain is still poignantly felt no matter our race, economic status, or the effectiveness of our choices. Pain is still pain.

These are habits of thought; but injected with mindfulness, we can catch and modify, expanding compassion towards humanity instead of a select few within our own limiting groups. By not justifying our devaluations of worth, we become connected—not divided. Something we desperately need in this world. We become part of the universe together.

"Just because there is a cause, we shouldn’t devalue the suffering—the pain is still poignantly felt no matter our race, economic status, or the effectiveness of our choices."

Relationships, politics, and societies expand with a more inclusive purpose. I fear we are moving in the wrong direction, more divisive, more unaccepting, and more punitive.

The foundation of compassion and empathy emerges from inclusion. We are connected. If the world is to change, we must cheer for others in their successes and embrace them in their failures. We are all priceless, of great value.

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T. Franklin Murphy

Wellness. Writer. Researcher.
T. Franklin Murphy has a degree in psychology. He is dedicated to the science of wellness. In 2010, he began publishing his findings.