I cannot fault your logic except in regards to the granny/girl scenario.
I know plenty of grannies that have more potential for enjoyment than suffering than many young girls.
She could be a saint upon whom many thousands of people depend for their own happiness. And just real talk this girl could be a total bitch, self centered and greedy with exactly zero chance to effect positivity in the world.
Human value absolutely boils down to the three categories you listed, but ultimately it's who determines the criteria that determines each ones value, no?
Hey @naturowlmystic, thanks a lot for the meaningful comment!
I agree that there are always exceptions, like the excellent example presented in your comment, but if you would simply have to quickly choose between saving a young, healthy, smiling girl or an old, very sick, barely moving lady (and you don't know other details about them), wouldn't you choose saving the young girl?
I fully agree with this and I believe that it's completely impossible to set perfect (or near perfect) criteria for this. That's probably the reason we usually stick to not comparing the value of different human lives, except when absolutely necessary in extreme situations.
Absolutely. And I must answer honestly: I have no idea how I would handle any of the abovementioned scenarios.
As I child I imagined all sorts of life or death situations and wondered how I would react to each one. I almost never was the hero in my mind.
I was so frightened of being killed by a gun that I figured a gun in my face would make me pee myself with fear. Now I'm 36 and on three separate occasions I've had the misfortune of staring down the barrel of a gun, and my reaction every time was completely different to my imaginings.
All I can say is that I hope nobody ever has to make a choice like this (hope in one hand and poop in the other and see which one fills up first as my dad would say) and I am thankful that up until now I've never had to knowingly decide the fate of another human.
I've swerved over animals before to avoid great damage to other life or property and felt really quite sad about it. I can't imagine what killing a person (without powerful motive [not a defense of murder just understanding]) to save another.
Jeez I'm a ramblin again. Thanks for making me think a bit more outside my head today as concerns death. My own is a usual meditation for me but I never ponder the choice of life or death over others.