Over summer my philosophy tutor was a student at Harvard. He was majoring in economics and minoring in philosophy. At first thought, one would think this combination is quite strange and unrelated. However, apparently there are several economic schools that actually require students to take a class in philosophy. My tutor said he had chosen this combination because both philosophy and economics deal with the logical part of the mind, as well as the study of human nature. In this lecture, Sandal discusses the cost and benefits of certain aspects of life in relation to the concept of utilitarianism. The concept of the cost of a human life comes into play. This concept of utilitarianism deals with both philosophical and economic concepts. From an economic standpoint, costs and benefits can be assessed according to money values. This deals with the concepts of externalities (Marginal Costs and Marginal Benefits). However, when dealing with a human life, how is one to asses the 'marginal costs and benefits'? Is a person's money value how much they had when they died? How much they impacted the world? Is their value decreased for every damage they caused to the planet? How are we to asses the value of a human life? Personally, I don't think we can. Here is an example of where economics and philosophy do not correspond. There is no logical way to put a price on life, even from the point of view from a utilitarian. The value of a life will hold different impact to different people. Do we average those values in order to determine the true value? Here and again we return to The Trolley Problem. In economics, we must produce at the 'socially optimum level'. Who are we to decide whether one life is less valuable than 5? Would it be socially optimum to kill the one and save the five, although we don't know the exact social value of each human life. And even if we did, would it make it okay?
No comments:
Post a Comment