Are poor people's lives as important as rich p...

Originally posted by Iron Monkey
Are the lives of poor people as important as those of rich people?

Suppose there is a rich person who is capable in every way of enjoying his or her life to the maximum, aided by their tremendous wealth. And a person living in grinding poverty, always hungry, sick and cold, and who barely enjoys living at all. It seems that the rich person has far mor ...[text shortened]... ive and which to die, there is a good (utilitarian) reason to let the rich guy live.

Discuss.

Even participating in seriously discussing such a "problem" is an immoral thing to do.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
Even participating in seriously discussing such a "problem" is an immoral thing to do.

explain thyself

Originally posted by Iron Monkey
What's so bizarre? One guy has far greater prospects for enjoying his life than the other. Nothing so bizarre there. And we assume they are equal in terms of the disutility their deaths would cause others (that's why we can ignore this - it's equal on both sides of the equation). Again, not a big stretch. The question is constructed this way to focus att I'm just interested in how people would go about thinking about a situation like this.

I realize you are trying to stay theoretical, but there is a historical parallel:

Scene: France, 1789.

The poor guy has lots of friends (or company if you like). The rich guy dies.

And many people would say justice was done.

Originally posted by Iron Monkey
What's so bizarre? One guy has far greater prospects for enjoying his life than the other. Nothing so bizarre there. And we assume they are equal in terms of the disutility their deaths would cause others (that's why we can ignore this - it's equal on both sides of the equation). Again, not a big stretch. The question is constructed this way to focus att ...[text shortened]... I'm just interested in how people would go about thinking about a situation like this.

"The question is constructed this way to focus attention on the core issue: if someone has more to lose by dying than someone else, is this a good reason to choose to keep him alive at the expense of that someone else?"

They both die; it isn't a matter of one having more to lose they both lose
it all, family, friends, goals, plans, their life and all that is here is gone.
There are people in this life that set out to get more money and things,
others turn down opportunities because of the standards they have. To
assume wealth is anything other than simply window dressing on a life
misses the life itself and what it is, that which makes us, us.
Kelly