How do you measure the worth of a man?

[danzibr]

(that's a lyric from The Prince of Egypt)

But really, I have a serious question. I'm not talking about assigning a numerical value to the value of a person, but rather... what do you value in people?

Are you like Albus Dumbledore and value kindness? Or do you favor intelligence? Or physical prowess? Or wealth? Loyalty? Good looks? Technical skills? Ambition?

I know this is a vague question, and as the thread progresses I'll have a few more things to say. For the moment, I'm just curious as to how people will respond.

[Grinner]

I'm tempted to give a flippant "Mankind is worthless" sort-of response, but I'm sitting on some time right now...To approach this in a manner other than some saccharine egalitarian ideology, it's necessary to lay down some foundations.

I suppose I value most the sort of things I understand the value of. That's only natural. However, value tends to be a circumstantial sort of thing; having a hammer does you little good unless you intend to hammer something. Therefore, in understanding the value of something, I think we frequently see its value only in it being a means to some end. Usually, the ultimate goal is betterment of some kind, whether that being improving oneself or others, escaping a situation one does not wish to be one, or procuring enjoyment. In evaluating others, it seems logical to compare them to what we find valuable ourselves. (I realize this is all highly self-referential. So be it.)

I guess the easiest way to say this is: "What is good about people?"

There is another way to look at it, though. Instead of asking ourselves what we find worthful, let's instead ask ourselves what we find worthless. In doing so, we draw a sharp contrast, making the whole affair slightly easier to parse.

Personally, I grow irritated when dealing with people apparently without capacity for introspection. Introspection is all about being honest with yourself. How can a person truly expect to speak the truth of others when they can't, or even won't, acknowledge the truth of themselves.

I suppose I also like boobs.

[danzibr]

Ooh that's interesting. Yes, valuing introspection.

I agree with the circumstantial bit. In fact, I was thinking when I mentioned technical skills in the original post. I'm not a very handy man, so if I need some electrical wiring done, I'll probably, right then, place more value on an electrician than I would at other times.

I also have... a few other ways to figure out what we value.

[Flickerdart]

People who spend all their time being introspective and bettering themselves are no better than those who spend all their time doing nothing. It is achievement that marks the value of a man. Build something or break something, but the magnitude of that change upon the world is what matters.

[Grinner]

People who spend all their time being introspective and bettering themselves are no better than those who spend all their time doing nothing. It is achievement that marks the value of a man. Build something or break something, but the magnitude of that change upon the world is what matters.

Inventing things could be seen as a way of bettering others or merely getting rich. Besides, it is true that leaving a legacy makes a much greater impact over time. On the other hand, it can be argued that mankind's inventions will be as ephemeral as mankind itself.

Edit:

I also have... a few other ways to figure out what we value.

Don't keep us in suspense now.

[Flickerdart]

Inventing things could be seen as a way of bettering others or merely getting rich. Besides, it is true that leaving a legacy makes a much greater impact over time. On the other hand, it can be argued that mankind's inventions will be as ephemeral as mankind itself.

it doesn't matter what it could be seen as. Motives are not relevant. "Bettering others" is still a localized impact; something meaningful is bettering society. Not people, but peoples.

As for lasting effects, that's not terribly important - not having anyone to behold the monuments of man does not somehow negate their value. Are the Pyramids worthless because no Pharaohs remain to gaze upon them?

[Bulldog Psion]

This is a question which probably goes as far into the subjective as it's possible to go.

How one measures the worth of a man depends on one's own perspective. There are billions of perspectives; there is no "one true way" that everyone will somehow agree on. IMO.

[Grinner]

How one measures the worth of a man depends on one's own perspective. There are billions of perspectives; there is no "one true way" that everyone will somehow agree on. IMO.

Yes, I suspect we're seeing that very phenomenon transpire before our eyes.

it doesn't matter what it could be seen as. Motives are not relevant. "Bettering others" is still a localized impact; something meaningful is bettering society. Not people, but peoples.

As for lasting effects, that's not terribly important - not having anyone to behold the monuments of man does not somehow negate their value. Are the Pyramids worthless because no Pharaohs remain to gaze upon them?

The Pyramids served their purpose. They were a means to an end. From what I understand, ancient Egyptian culture had an understanding that a man's power in the afterlife was built upon how well he was remembered in the present. To that end, monuments were built to mark their greatness.

For us, they serve an entirely different purpose and present a different value. For us, these monuments provide a window into the past.

In light of this, I will concede that what happens has a much greater impact, but to the individual, who tends to be innately selfish, I suspect he doesn't give a whit about the long-term effects. He cares only about how that serves him.

Also, motives will inform what happens. It's just cause and effect.

[Flickerdart]

Yes, I suspect we're seeing that very phenomenon transpire before our eyes.



The Pyramids served their purpose. They were a means to an end. From what I understand, ancient Egyptian culture had an understanding that a man's power in the afterlife was built upon how well he was remembered in the present. To that end, monuments were built to mark their greatness.

For us, they serve an entirely different purpose and present a different value. For us, these monuments provide a window into the past.

In light of this, I will concede that what happens has a much greater impact, but to the individual, who tends to be innately selfish, I suspect he doesn't give a whit about the long-term effects. He cares only about how that serves him.

Also, motives will inform what happens. It's just cause and effect.

Motives inform what happens, but since there are many ways to achieve the same effects, that actually doesn't matter. Egypt's pyramids reminded the pharaohs' subjects of the state's power while instilling them with a sense of pride founded in that same power, and that was a very real effect on an entire society. The fact that it came about because a few guys wanted to have sweet digs in the afterlife doesn't matter.

[Grinner]

Motives inform what happens, but since there are many ways to achieve the same effects, that actually doesn't matter. Egypt's pyramids reminded the pharaohs' subjects of the state's power while instilling them with a sense of pride founded in that same power, and that was a very real effect on an entire society. The fact that it came about because a few guys wanted to have sweet digs in the afterlife doesn't matter.

Yes, but in this case, I would propose that happened only because they wanted to live it up in the afterlife. Many things can cause the same effect, but it seems to me that only few can naturally result in that effect.

At this point, we're going circles. If you can propose a reasonable alternative, that's cool. If not, that's also cool. I'm gonna go back to reading my book regardless.

[Starwulf]

For me, I find loyalty and honesty very valuable traits in anyone I would consider a friend, and faithfulness in a respective other. Beyond that, intelligence(but not in a showy-off kind of way, I hate people who feel the need to show off everything they know all the time), a good sense of humor, and a thirst for fun.

[Coidzor]

Are you like Albus Dumbledore and value kindness? Or do you favor intelligence? Or physical prowess? Or wealth? Loyalty? Good looks? Technical skills? Ambition?

Yes, all of the above.

The metrics I most frequently have to actually make use of in my interpersonal relationships with men is their personability(so a combination of their personal warmth, social openness, honesty, ability to refrain from socially unacceptable behaviors at appropriate times, etc.) and whether we've compatible personalities for friendship or if the best that can be expected of us is to work together without being at loggerheads for the sake of some project.

[Lord Raziere]

People are valuable for many different reasons. I often don't get to caught up in valuing certain traits over others, as to do is to limit your view of reality and ignore things that could potentially be useful. You can't after all, dismiss certain traits of hand, for they are all useful somehow for some situation, and society cannot function without all these valuable traits being in their proper place. not everyone shares the same values, and this is a strength because some values are more needed in different situations than others for things to work right.

For example, to measure someone purely by how strong they are, is to discard the weak, the downtrodden, the needy. To measure someone purely by how intelligent they are is to ignore whether not they are a good person, to measure someone purely by their good heart is to ignore whether or not they are skilled and competent. you have to be careful about what you value in people, and the reasons why you value that in them.

furthermore you have to be wary in what the person themselves values about others, and how much you measure their worth in measuring others worth! Because that persons perception of the value of people is just as important to telling how you should value them.

perhaps maybe there might be some common things to value in all people or at least most of them, but I'm not exactly sure of what they might be. Its a very interesting question and like all interesting questions, is hard to answer, because there is probably no definitive answer.

[Tengu_temp]

Goodness is the most important, universal quality. Not everyone can be smart or have a great sense of humour (though I value both of those, just not as much), but everyone can try to be a decent, compassionate human being.

[danzibr]

It is achievement that marks the value of a man.

This... I'm not so sure of. Is someone with few achievements, yet kind and honest and loyal, of little worth?

Don't keep us in suspense now.

Hmm, okay. I have three things to say, one here and two later.

1) I have two young children, and I teach high school. I have an array of students who would be considered good students in various ways. I find myself thinking about some students... I'd like it if my son/daughter grew up to be like you (and others I think please no). I don't say this of course.

This is a question which probably goes as far into the subjective as it's possible to go.

How one measures the worth of a man depends on one's own perspective. There are billions of perspectives; there is no "one true way" that everyone will somehow agree on. IMO.

Yeah, I agree. Highly subjective. That's sort of what I was asking (like, how do *you* measure worth?).

For me, I find loyalty and honesty very valuable traits in anyone I would consider a friend, and faithfulness in a respective other. Beyond that, intelligence(but not in a showy-off kind of way, I hate people who feel the need to show off everything they know all the time), a good sense of humor, and a thirst for fun.

Ah-ha!

2) Not only does the answer depend on the person, I think it also depends on the kind of person the first person is talking about (does that make sense?). So... yeah, I value different things in friends v. co-workers v. neighbors v. my wife v. my children, etc.

Yes, all of the above.

The metrics I most frequently have to actually make use of in my interpersonal relationships with men is their personability(so a combination of their personal warmth, social openness, honesty, ability to refrain from socially unacceptable behaviors at appropriate times, etc.) and whether we've compatible personalities for friendship or if the best that can be expected of us is to work together without being at loggerheads for the sake of some project.

Agreed.

People are valuable for many different reasons. I often don't get to caught up in valuing certain traits over others, as to do is to limit your view of reality and ignore things that could potentially be useful. You can't after all, dismiss certain traits of hand, for they are all useful somehow for some situation, and society cannot function without all these valuable traits being in their proper place. not everyone shares the same values, and this is a strength because some values are more needed in different situations than others for things to work right. [...] Its a very interesting question and like all interesting questions, is hard to answer, because there is probably no definitive answer.

Agreed again. I believe everyone has value, and in different situations.

Goodness is the most important, universal quality. Not everyone can be smart or have a great sense of humour (though I value both of those, just not as much), but everyone can try to be a decent, compassionate human being.

Ya know, I might agree here. Maybe some things are objectively valuable.

And for the final.

3) Perhaps assigning values is somehow not ``right.'' It's been touched upon, but saying, for example, smarts are better than beauty, somehow places smart people above pretty people.

[Grinner]

Ya know, I might agree here. Maybe some things are objectively valuable.

Goodness, as the existence of innumerable D&D alignment debates shows, is an incredibly complex subject. Let's say I have friend with some really poor ideas. Let's say he wants to make a living writing RPGs while supporting a wife and three kids. The nice thing to do would be to support him. The right thing to do, at least by his family, would be to tell him off.

You might argue that "Good is not nice." Well, the problem is that niceness is frequently equated with goodness, so it seems we collectively don't really know what we're talking about.

3) Perhaps assigning values is somehow not ``right.'' It's been touched upon, but saying, for example, smarts are better than beauty, somehow places smart people above pretty people.

That is implicit in the statement, yes. While it offends your egalitarian sensibilities, it cannot be avoided.

We should remember that we already seem to have agreed that the whole concept is rife with subjectivity. Therefore, the consequent ranking is also subjective.

[Forum Explorer]

Oh that's easy! You simply take the skulls of all the enemies he's slain and piles them up. The bigger the pile, the more he's worth.


More seriously, I don't think myself, or any of us for that matter, are in the slightest bit qualified to judge the worth of another person. We lack the perspective and the experience to do so. We lack the knowledge of the other person's life and how they were thinking and feeling at the time of their decisions.


If you are merely asking which sort of person I like to be around, well then they simply need to be able to hold an intelligent conversation with me, and beyond that criteria it varies a lot.

[warty goblin]

People are valuable for many different reasons. I often don't get to caught up in valuing certain traits over others, as to do is to limit your view of reality and ignore things that could potentially be useful. You can't after all, dismiss certain traits of hand, for they are all useful somehow for some situation, and society cannot function without all these valuable traits being in their proper place. not everyone shares the same values, and this is a strength because some values are more needed in different situations than others for things to work right.

Agreed again. I believe everyone has value, and in different situations.

I don't think I can agree with this. Firstly one has to be careful to distinguish between traits and people, and I'm quite comfortable saying some traits, behaviors and desires are entirely destructive and evil. Pedophilia for instance; I'm pretty sure society would tick along at least as well as it does now if nobody wanted to molest children. Or murder their neighbors over parking disputes.

(Yes, I realize I'm violating the unspoken rule where we pretend everybody's nice if they're just free to express themselves everything will be gravy. Which seems to be ignoring the fact that maybe going out and shooting your neighbor because they parked in your spot is being the real you. )

Now once one accepts that certain traits and behaviors are entirely devoid of redeeming value, the question shifts to people, which are basically collections of traits and behaviors. It seems to me that one has to accept the possibility that a person possesses only negative traits, or such a majority of them that it's very hard to come up with any particular value for that person. Whether or not, by whatever metric you weigh people, any person in reality actually crosses this boundary is a different question, but the need to consider it is implied strongly by entirely destructive behavior. Which is why I cannot get behind a blanket 'everybody has value' because it's entirely possible that not everybody does.

[Coidzor]

People who spend all their time being introspective and bettering themselves are no better than those who spend all their time doing nothing. It is achievement that marks the value of a man. Build something or break something, but the magnitude of that change upon the world is what matters.

Could you please elaborate? Because it almost sounds like you're saying in your worldview it's preferable to go on a shooting spree like Anders Brevik or Elliot Rodgers to be a brief footnote in history and to make sure that some other people don't do anything instead of living one's life, finding love, and raising good kids.

Which is why I cannot get behind a blanket 'everybody has value' because it's entirely possible that not everybody does.

It's a very dangerous road to go down, though, and one that can very easily lead to saying that people's lives have no value, even if they're not criminals who have been tried and condemned to death as the punishment for their wrongdoing.

[Flickerdart]

Could you please elaborate? Because it almost sounds like you're saying in your worldview it's preferable to go on a shooting spree like Anders Brevik or Elliot Rodgers to be a brief footnote in history and to make sure that some other people don't do anything instead of living one's life, finding love, and raising good kids.

Shooting a bunch of random people is not a higher magnitude than raising a family - you might get a Wiki page but you didn't actually make a difference in anything. Neither is worth very much, though.

[Coidzor]

Shooting a bunch of random people is not a higher magnitude than raising a family - you might get a Wiki page but you didn't actually make a difference in anything. Neither is worth very much, though.

So I was correct in my interpretation, but not in the scale of mass murder necessary to count, then?

[warty goblin]

It's a very dangerous road to go down, though, and one that can very easily lead to saying that people's lives have no value, even if they're not criminals who have been tried and condemned to death as the punishment for their wrongdoing.

It is very dangerous, yes. However it seems a logical possibility if one wants to avoid the rather unsatisfying bit where you go "Sure Frank is a violent, abusive, racist who has killed seventeen people to date, in between selling heroine to toddlers. But these are traits that society needs so he has value!" Now a person may decide that the hypothetical Franks of the world aren't worth the ethical cost of killing, or that the baseline value of being a member of the species puts one in the class of things that we don't kill, but saying everything is valuable and can contribute is pretty obviously nonsense. Which in turn suggests that if you accumulate enough negative, non-contributing traits in a person they don't contribute, even in a gross (not net) sense. Ergo the need for a more satisfactory remedy than simply saying everything is valuable, which is the sort of coddling thing people post on Facebook to avoid feeling bad.

[danzibr]

I cannot get behind a blanket 'everybody has value' because it's entirely possible that not everybody does.

raising a family [... is not] worth very much

Tried to keep the quotes intact.

Now these are interesting. Admittedly, I used to have similar views to both of these. I feel like... I can't say much on the matter.

[warty goblin]

Tried to keep the quotes intact.

Now these are interesting. Admittedly, I used to have similar views to both of these. I feel like... I can't say much on the matter.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that valueless people exist, only that beginning with the assumption that anything a person does has value is unsatisfactory and contradicts putting value on anything, so it is reasonable to assume that certain traits are in fact worthless. Which in turn, under some value metrics, implies the possibility that zero-value people do in fact exist. Personally I think that's a pretty good reason not to use those metrics, since it leads to some scary places, as Coidzor pointed out.

[danzibr]

To be clear, I'm not arguing that valueless people exist, only that beginning with the assumption that anything a person does has value is unsatisfactory and contradicts putting value on anything, so it is reasonable to assume that certain traits are in fact worthless. Which in turn, under some value metrics, implies the possibility that zero-value people do in fact exist. Personally I think that's a pretty good reason not to use those metrics, since it leads to some scary places, as Coidzor pointed out.

Ahh, I see. Yes, in which I basically agree with you. I would absolutely disagree with the statement ``anything a person does has value.'' Well, positive value anyway. Though by definition metrics cannot take negative values, I certainly think many actions have negative values.

[Spiryt]

Spoiler: What is worth?

Show

[SiuiS]

You get a problem with these sorts of questions that people read the responses as apophatic. Limited. But value isnt a benchmark you hit and then stop at, you want to go past. And it's not a technical thing; you can't get edge cases where technically the person doesn't value the thing they do because of a way of framing.

Value is weird. Leaving out in what context do you value things, because i value different things in my friends than in society as a whole, etc.

[Mr.Moron]

All human life is equal. I'm personally mostly going to enjoy people who share my values, smell good, make me laugh and enjoy eating. I'm totally uninterested in ranking people's value in any other way besides that.

[Flickerdart]

So I was correct in my interpretation, but not in the scale of mass murder necessary to count, then?

One person's mass murderer is another person's hero. Without bringing politics into this, it's remarkably difficult for a person to be a mass murderer unless someone else agrees with them enough to help out, and a bunch of someone elses don't care enough to intervene.

[Spanish_Paladin]

There are many factors when i value a person, but empathy, compassion, altruism are in the top of the list for me.