New Dog -Man Question

West, this guy has yet to post anything resembling a logical argument to date. I think he should be in the "because that's how I was raised to think" forum rather than philosophy.

[DeadRed]

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Since humanity & society stands to benefit more from the extra 24 hours the man is given than from the puppy's life, then the Utilitarian thing to do is to buy the human more time.

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Nice handwaving. Try justifying this statement instead of claiming it as fact.

I, personally, would rather have to explain to a family that their father/husband will die today instead of tomorrow so that little Johnny will have a life-long companion as opposed to telling Johnny his puppy dies so Mr. Jones gets to add 1/200 % to his lifespan.

[Macedon]

The arguments for the dog are absolutely absurd.
Imagine if you found out (afterwards) that the man down the block was your biological father. [You were adopted. Neither one of you were aware of the other's existence.]

If you would have saved him, you would have had 24 hours to spend with him, talk to him, tell him that you love him.

Are you glad you saved Fito?

Obviously and of course, the above hypothetical is meant to play on your emotions. But you get the main point.

Even if it isn't your dad and YOU (particularly) have nothing invested emotionally with the guy, you SHOULD have something invested in the consideration of OTHER people's feelings, emotions, relationships, etc....

One man's love of his dog is not equal (in value) to one person's love of their father or brother, etc.

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Obviously and of course, the above hypothetical is meant to play on your emotions.

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Thanks for at least admitting this train of thought has little to do with reason and everything to do with knee-jerk emotions.

[Macedon]

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Obviously and of course, the above hypothetical is meant to play on your emotions.

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Thanks for at least admitting this train of thought has little to do with reason and everything to do with knee-jerk emotions.

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Well the example of the father was meant to elicit a knee-jerked emotion, but the consideration of other's feelings, attachments, etc, is carefully considered, reasonable, and mostly devoid of emotion.

The consideration of man, or mankind in general, can be done without emotion. You can start by placing values onto all living things based on some rational criteria. (Cuteness would not be included in that criteria)

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The consideration of man, or mankind in general, can be done without emotion. You can start by placing values onto all living things based on some rational criteria. (Cuteness would not be included in that criteria)

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Well then it wouldn't be a stretch to say 1 dog life (and its impact on humans it is associated with) is worth more than one nanosecond extra in a dying man's life. If you concede this, then you will be admitting that the rest (24 hr : 1 life) is just quibbling over those value estimates, and thus saying that anybody who'd consider a case for the dog is not irrational or absurd or immoral, just that their value estimates differed from yours.

It's kind of like a woman saying she'd accept sleeping with someone for $1 million, but also considering that sex for $100 is immoral. She's already admitted that sex for money isn't the issue, just the price.

[John Cole]

Easy answer to both questions: the human life is more valuable inherently (but I'm not Peter Singer) and more worth the saving.

[DougShrapnel]

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This one is easily the man for 24 hrs. Where as the other dog-man was easliy the dog. My life is worth more to me than your life. My dogs life is worth more to me than a random persons life. However a random dogs entire life is not worth more than an anything above a insignificate ammount of time of a random persons life.


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I agree. If both are random than human life is far more significant. However I think the question is about which will bring more happiness to human life.


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I was suprprised to see agreement with what I said. I'm positive that happiness in my life is more important to me than happiness to human life. I give to charities mainly based becuase it makes me happy to do so. I'd put it at maybe 800 to 1. If I made a desision that inflected a proportionate amount of of misery on 800 people to my happiness, I think I could live with that. Am I cruel or honest? Cause I know many people that make decisions with a far larger others misery to personal happiness ratio, and find very few examples of altruism.

[Macedon]

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The consideration of man, or mankind in general, can be done without emotion. You can start by placing values onto all living things based on some rational criteria. (Cuteness would not be included in that criteria)

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Well then it wouldn't be a stretch to say 1 dog life (and its impact on humans it is associated with) is worth more than one nanosecond extra in a dying man's life. If you concede this, then you will be admitting that the rest (24 hr : 1 life) is just quibbling over those value estimates, and thus saying that anybody who'd consider a case for the dog is not irrational or absurd or immoral, just that their value estimates differed from yours.


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Well sure, you are imagining a rational value system with your example. To take it further, if this man was a mass-murderer who had no love ones, no redeeming societal value, then the dog would certainly be more valuable [to us] than the man.

However, you have to assume, since Sklanksy did not state otherwise, that this man is regular in every way and that his life has value equal to that of our own.

Since Sklansky said 24 hours, it IS irrational, absurd and immoral to choose the dogs life over the man's. The fact that he is dying is almost completely irrelevant to the total argument about value.

You do see that...right?

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

id save the puppy. puppys rule.