A creature of perfect morality

[gfish]

(This exploration was inspired by de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity, coincidentally reinforced by parts of Palmer's Seven Surrenders, plus some of the style of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. So if it's a little pretentious, well, you now know why.)

How do we value human life?

I'm walking down the street. Two cars crash and burst into flames. I

Comments

[eub]

Infinities do not have to behave like that -- this 10 lives = 1 life thing -- if you don't want them to. So that's not a knockdown argument against treating human life as of infinite value. Because you could track your moral value as two components, lives plus other.
(10 * infinity + 500) > (1 * infinity + 2000)
(10 * infinite + 500) < (10 * infinite + 2000)
and so on.

If you're thinking I'm being mathematically improper, I ain't. There are infinities for any purpose. Cardinal infinities behave like you describe, 2 * infinity = infinity (same number of odd integers as there are of all integers). They're a blunt family of infinities. Ordinal infinities are finer, distinguishing the sequence
1 < 2 < ... < infinity < inf + 1 < inf + 2 < ... < 2 * inf < 2 * inf + 1 < ... < inf * inf < ... (there's a lot of room up here

[slantiness]

Cool post. I like it.

Big thoughts. Thoughts are everything!
Big thoughts about the value of valuing thoughts that create value?
Mm.