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This is definitely a more difficult question to answer, and with that being said their is not necessarily one correct answer. There is something to be said about the value of human life and its significance. The extent of that significance, however, is often the point of debate. So, in order to best explore this question we would like to look at the evidence from all sides of this delicate question.

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The first forum discusses how the worth of human life is determined by the average individual. One forum gives a hypothetical example that "if a day care was on fire would you rush in and look to save your own children or save the other children?" The second forum analyzes Picasso and Steve Jobs, most notably how Steve Jobs was a jerk and Picasso's moral failings, specifically his infidelity.

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Who are we to determine the worth of a human life?

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Who are we to determine the worth of a human life?

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Forum of different individuals viewpoint on the question of, 'who are we to determine the worth of a human life?'

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Are some human lives worth more than others?

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Answer (1 of 18): The worth of a human life depends on who is doing the calibrating or ranking. For example, say a day care center next to an office complex catches on fire and the parents rush to the scene before fire fighters get there...a few parents brave the flames and rush in.

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Are some people better than others? You might wonder what kind of a question that is. On the one hand, there's no controversy-some people are smarter than others, some are more creative, some are stronger or faster, and some are kinder or more virtuous. So, if that's all we're asking, the answer is obvious.

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The Catholic Church view on the value of life 

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The Catholic Church view on the value of life 

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Both of what these articles show signifies that the Catholic Church views all human life as sacred. It is also touches on the fact that the Catholic Church's teachings "calls on us to avoid war." Pope Francis holds the same belief through a statement in which he said: yes to life, decisive and without hesitation. "The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are precious, but this one is fundamental – the condition for all the others."

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Pope Francis stated that, "There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there exists no human life qualitatively more meaningful than another”. 

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Pope Francis stated that, "There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there exists no human life qualitatively more meaningful than another”. 

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Pope Francis today met with members of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations and Catholic gynecologists, and spoke of the current paradoxical situation of the medical profession, Vatican news reported.

"On the one hand we see progress in the field of medicine, thanks to the work of scientists who passionately and unreservedly dedicate themselves to the search for new cures. On the other hand, however, we also encounter the risk that doctors lose sight of their identity in the service of life". He referred to the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate to explain that this paradoxical situation is seen also in the fact that, "while new rights are attributed to or indeed almost presumed by the individual, life is not always protected as the primary value and the primordial right of every human being.

The ultimate aim of medicine remains the defense and promotion of life". Faced with this contradictory situation, Francis renewed the Church's appeal to the conscience of all healthcare professionals and volunteers, especially gynecologists. "Yours is a singular vocation and mission, which necessitates study, conscience and humanity", he said.

Again, Francis spoke of the "throwaway culture" that leads to the elimination of human beings, especially those who are physically and socially weakest. "Our response to this mentality is a 'yes' to life, decisive and without hesitation. 'The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are precious, but this one is fundamental - the condition for all the others'".

Reiterating that in recent times, human life in its entirety has become a priority for the Magisterium of the Church, he emphasized that "goods have a price and can be sold, but people have dignity, they are worth more than goods and have no price".

Season 3 of NCR's award-winning podcast is here. Listen now

Francis asked those present to "bear witness to and disseminate this 'culture of life' ... remind all, through actions and words, that in all its phases and at any age, life is always sacred and always of quality. And not as a matter of faith, but of reason and science! There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there exists no human life qualitatively more meaningful than another".

Editors note: We can send you an biweekly email alert with content from The Francis Chronicles. Follow the directions on our email alert sign up page.

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Francis: 'No life is more valuable than another'

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Pope Francis today met with members of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations and Catholic gynecologists, and spoke of the current paradoxical situation of the medical profession, Vatican news reported. "On the one hand we see progress in the field of medicine, thanks to the work of scientists who passionately and unreservedly dedicate themselves to the search for new cures.

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Catholic Church Viewpoint on the Life and Dignity of the Human Person

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Catholic Church Viewpoint on the Life and Dignity of the Human Person

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The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. This belief is the foundation of all the principles of our social teaching. In our society, human life is under direct attack from abortion and euthanasia. The value of human life is being threatened by cloning, embryonic stem cell research, and the use of the death penalty. The intentional targeting of civilians in war or terrorist attacks is always wrong. Catholic teaching also calls on us to work to avoid war. Nations must protect the right to life by finding increasingly effective ways to prevent conflicts and resolve them by peaceful means. We believe that every person is precious, that people are more important than things, and that the measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person.

Tradition

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities - to offer just a few examples - it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. (Pope Francis, On Care for Our Common Home [ Laudato Si'], no. 117)

Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a "throw away" culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised - they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the "exploited" but the outcast, the "leftovers". (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel [ Evangelii Gaudium], no. 153)

The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner. (Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth [Caritas in Veritate], no. 32)

Human persons are willed by God; they are imprinted with God's image. Their dignity does not come from the work they do, but from the persons they are. (St. John Paul II, On the Hundredth Year [, no. 11)

The basis for all that the Church believes about the moral dimensions of economic life is its vision of the transcendent worth -- the sacredness -- of human beings. The dignity of the human person, realized in community with others, is the criterion against which all aspects of economic life must be measured.

All human beings, therefore, are ends to be served by the institutions that make up the economy, not means to be exploited for more narrowly defined goals. Human personhood must be respected with a reverence that is religious. When we deal with each other, we should do so with the sense of awe that arises in the presence of something holy and sacred. For that is what human beings are: we are created in the image of God ( Gn 1:27). (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, no. 28)

Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery of the Word of God who was made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), is entrusted to the maternal care of the Church. Therefore every threat to human dignity and life must necessarily be felt in the Church's very heart; it cannot but affect her at the core of her faith in the Redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God, and engage her in her mission of proclaiming the Gospel of life in all the world and to every creature (cf. Mk 16:15). (St. John Paul II, The Gospel of Life [Evangelium vitae], no. 3)

As explicitly formulated, the precept "You shall not kill" is strongly negative: it indicates the extreme limit which can never be exceeded. Implicitly, however, it encourages a positive attitude of absolute respect for life; it leads to the promotion of life and to progress along the way of a love which gives, receives and serves. (St. John Paul II, The Gospel of Life [Evangelium vitae], no. 54)

This teaching rests on one basic principle: individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution. That is necessarily so, for men are by nature social beings. (St. John XXIII, Mother and Teacher [Mater et Magistra], no. 219)

There exist also sinful inequalities that affect millions of men and women. These are in open contradiction of the Gospel: Their equal dignity as persons demands that we strive for fairer and more humane conditions. Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1938)

Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. (Second Vatican Council, The Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et Spes], no. 27)

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The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. This belief is the foundation of all the principles of our social teaching. In our society, human life is under direct attack from abortion and euthanasia.

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Authors in "Leading Lives That Matter" on the value of life

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Authors in "Leading Lives That Matter" on the value of life

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These five authors write from a large scope on the value of life. C.S. Lewis discusses the three types of enemies. Aristotle shares his idea that if you are a noble person you will be sufficed with a short life and will give whatever you have towards someone in need. Homer touches on the question of if self sacrifice is ever sensible, especially in the context of going off to war? Dorothy Day points out the two differences of suffering, with the first type being suffering under mind and soul which is not looked to with delight, and the second type of suffering being that of which is correlated with suffering through love which is looked to with delight. And Albert Schweitzer call's us to the duty of direct human service, similar to his actions of service in Africa.

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C.S. Lewis on enemies that war raises up against us!

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C.S. Lewis on enemies that war raises up against us!

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1. "The first enemy is excitement - the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defense is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war has not really raised up a new enemy but only aggregated an old one." (Lewis, 127)
2."The second enemy is frustration - the feeling that we shall not have time to finish. If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of learning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical." (Lewis, 127)
3. "The third enemy is fear. War threatens us with death and pain. No man and specially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane - need try to attain a stoic indifference about these things, but we can guard against the illusions of the imagination." (Lewis, 128)

"Does it increase our chances of a painful death? I doubt it."

"Does it decrease our chances of dying at peace with God? I cannot believe it."

"Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it."

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"Aristotle argues that a person of noble character will and should prefer a short but splendid life to a long life of steady accomplishment and satisfaction." (Aristotle, 129)
"It is quite true that, as they say, the excellent person labors for his friends and for his native country, and will die for them if he must; he will sacrifice money, honors, and contested goods in general, in achieving the fine for himself." (Aristotle, 130)

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"Is self-sacrifice ever sensible? If it is sensible, if the noble human being, in sacrificing for others, really is choosing the best part for himself, as Aristotle thought is he really sacrificing?" (Homer, 131)
Achilles mother (Thetis) showed achilles two fates, go to Troy and die with glory or stay home and die with no glory.

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"The very fact that children come face to face with death and suffering easy, makes for that paradox, rejoicing in tribulation, that the New Testament speaks of." (Day, 158)
"Since it is suffering of a most cruel kind that she is laboring under, a blackness of the mind and soul, she wills a delight in this suffering. If suffering is a part of love, suffering then will become her delight." (Day, 163)

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Albert Schweitzer: "I Resolve to Become a Jungle Doctor"

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Albert Schweitzer: "I Resolve to Become a Jungle Doctor"

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"As I worried about the homeless and former convicts it became clear to me that they could only be effectively helped if many individuals devoted themselves to them." (Schweitzer, 31-32)
"One can serve one's life as a human being, along with one's professional existence, if one seizes every opportunity, however unassuming, to act humanly toward those who need another human being. In this way we serve both the spiritual and the good. Nothing can keep us from this second job of direct human service." (Schweitzer, 35)

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The Politics and law of a society normally reflect how human life is viewed. These articles seek to explore that aspect of the central question. The first two articles discuss life's value in the west during the modern era, asking question like are all men truly created equal and to what extent can you equate quality of life to dollar signs? The two videos are word studies of the bible project Youtube channel, explaining "justice," and "the law" according to Ancient Near East culture, and then translating those cultural norms, and ideas over to those of the modern day.

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Senator Mike Lee: 'Are All Men Created Equal, Or Are Some More Equal Than Others?'

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Senator Mike Lee: 'Are All Men Created Equal, Or Are Some More Equal Than Others?'

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The value of humanity in terms of abortion

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Mr. President, today hundreds of thousands of Americans from all walks of life will participate in the 45th annual March for Life.

Why do these citizens march, year after year?

It certainly isn't for their health. Or for the media coverage.

No, these Americans march on behalf of those who cannot.

They march for uniquely vulnerable members of the human family. For the unborn. For those threatened by abortion. And for the countless innocent lives already lost.

These Americans march to protest the legal regime that sustains abortion.

The cornerstone of that crumbling edifice is Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that invented a so-called "right" to abortion in the Constitution, and in so doing stripped the unborn of their right to life.

The principal effect of Roe on our culture has been to cheapen the value of humanity itself.

Roe has insinuated into the law a poisonous notion, the notion that some human beings may be treated as things. As objects to be discarded when they are inconvenient. We've seen this before in human history.

But an unintended effect of Roe has been to kick-start a movement that has lasted for four-and-a-half decades.

Roe did not resolve the abortion debate-although it tried to. Rather it intensified the debate.

The nation's conscience was not deadened by Roe's euphemisms and evasions; rather it was brought to life.

Like a firebell in the night, Roe awakened a generation of Americans to the injustice of abortion.

Countless thousands of them are marching in Washington, Salt Lake City, and cities across the country today.

But the institution of abortion still has its defenders. Vociferous defenders, even.

Why does this issue arouse such anger and passion?

I argue it is because the pro-life and pro-abortion rights movements offer competing moral visions for our society indeed, competing arguments about human dignity and what it means to be human in the first place.

Both moral visions are as old as the nation. They have appeared in various guises all throughout our history.

But there is a consistent trend in how the clash of visions has played out in every era.

The vision advanced by the pro-life movement has inspired righteous protests. The other vision has been used to rationalize hideous injustices.

The pro-life vision embraces our country's noblest truth. The pro-abortion vision twists it.

Let me explain what I mean.

Our Declaration of Independence contains one of the most succinct and revolutionary statements in human history.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are LIFE, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

We know that the United States has not always acted on this high principle. We have denied life, liberty, and opportunity to our fellow man in countless cruel and unfortunate ways.

But even in the darkest times, patriots and reformers have looked to this passage as a guiding light, because it is the conscience of our nation.

Abraham Lincoln referred to the Declaration constantly in his speeches, calling it the "sheet anchor of American republicanism" and the "Father of all moral principle."

He called the Declaration's statement on human equality the "electric cord" that links patriotic Americans through the ages.

Now that electric cord has reached us. It is a direct line that runs from the Founding Generation to the very heart of the pro-life movement.

The core conviction of the pro-life movement is that "all men are created equal" that all have a right to life.

We believe that every human being has dignity and merits protection simply by virtue of being human.

You will often hear pro-lifers emphasize the human features of unborn children, as well we should.

We point out that the human heart begins to beat as early as 16 days after conception. We point out that the unborn child can yawn, react to pain, and suck her thumb. And we point out that that thumb even has a one-of-a-kind fingerprint.

But we do not mention these characteristics because they are what give unborn children worth. It is not our fingerprints or even our beating hearts that make us people.

Rather, we point to these characteristics because they point in turn to something more fundamental.

They point to the inescapable fact that the unborn child is a human being, just like us. A member of our messy family.

It is that endowment, that shared humanity, that gives us all moral worth.

And so, to summarize the pro-life position, we have only to repeat those five words in the Declaration: "All men are created equal." All are entitled to life.

But to be sure, not everyone shares the belief that all men are created equal.

At various times this belief has been called an "error of the past generation." It has even been called a "self-evident lie!"

Few today would denounce the Declaration of Independence in such terms.

But defenders of abortion still repudiate the Declaration by their actions, and by the arguments they advance to protect legal abortion.

Defenders of abortion no longer dispute that unborn children are living human beings. How could they? Science testifies unequivocally to our shared humanity.

Most sophisticated defenders of abortion do not even dispute that abortion is a violent act.

If you do not believe me on this point, perhaps you will believe Ronald Dworkin, a prominent apologist for the pro-choice position: "Abortion," Dworkin writes, " is deliberately killing a developing human embryo."

He goes on to describe abortion as a "choice for death."

So if abortion defenders do not deny the humanity of the fetus, and if they do not deny that abortion kills the fetus, how then do they defend abortion?

In short, they do it by segregating the human family into two classes: Human beings who are worthy of life-sometimes referred to as "human persons"- and human beings who are unworthy of life- "human non-persons."

According to this view, human beings do not deserve protection on the basis of their humanity alone.

Rather they gain the right to life when they attain certain characteristics-usually some level of cognitive ability or bodily development.

Since the unborn lack these magic personhood qualities, they lack the right to life and may be dismembered in the womb. They are "human non-persons." Or so the argument goes.

There are many problems with this chilling view. It has been rebutted at length by smarter men and women than me.

But for the purposes of today, it is enough to point out the track record of this argument.

Because it just so happens that every time mankind has been artificially divided into classes-into "persons" and "non-persons" based on their race, sex, genetic fitness, or any other attribute-the result has been calamity.

Which leads to a very simple question that has never been satisfactorily answered by abortion's defenders: Why should we believe that this time is any different?

Abortion is a difficult subject matter for so many reasons, but on another level it is quite simple.

Our society has to choose between the two visions of human dignity described above.

Put simply, do we believe that all men are created equal? Or that some are more equal than others?

This simple question deserves a simple response: We must choose the first of those options, and affirm that all human beings are created with dignity.

And we must reject all attempts to separate the human family into higher and lower classes.

Let us see these attempts for what they are: Cruel fictions that cheapen life itself.

Just as there is no such thing as "life unworthy of life," there is no such thing as a "human non-person." There are just people. And we are each fearfully and wonderfully made.

Yes, dignity was ours before we stirred in the womb. It is stamped onto the very fabric of our genome. It is printed onto our soul.

This is the truth so brilliantly proclaimed in our nation's Founding Documents-even as it is denied by our legal system, starting with Roe v. Wade.

But even though the laws of man are against us (for now), the truth is with us. And the truth can erode even the most formidable edifice of lies.

And so, on this forty-fifth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, let us respond to Roe as Frederick Douglass responded to a similar indignity, Dred Scott v. Sandford.

"Happily for the whole human family," Douglass thundered, "their rights have been defined, declared, and decided in a court higher than the Supreme Court."

Those words are as true today as they were when they were spoken.

They call us to continue the winding march for justice-and for life-until the unalienable rights of every human being are respected in our land.

Thank you.

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Are All Men Created Equal, Or Are Some More Equal Than Others?

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Mr. President, today hundreds of thousands of Americans from all walks of life will participate in the 45th annual March for Life. Why do these citizens march, year after year? It certainly isn't for their health. Or for the media coverage. No, these Americans march on behalf of those who cannot.

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Can we accurately give monetary value to life?

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Value of life often correlates with Justice.

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Value of Life often correlates with the law as well

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The Purpose of the Old Testament Law of Moses in the Bible

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These two articles look at the last stages of life when a hospital either doesn't have the proper resources to save an individual or when the resources are present but there is nothing to be done because it is simply that individual's time to pass away. The point of these articles is to explore the ethical questions of who gets to decide life and death, and not only the deaths of ourselves but those of the sick and needy in times of crisis?

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The Medical Viewpoint of who can you save?

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The Medical Viewpoint of who can you save?

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Abstract

Who should be saved when health resources are limited? Although bioethicists and policymakers continue to debate which metric should be used to evaluate health interventions, public policy is also subject to public opinion. We investigated how the public values life when evaluating vaccine-allocation policies during a flu epidemic. We found that people's ratings of the acceptability of policies were dramatically influenced by question framing. When policies were described in terms of lives saved, people judged them on the basis of the number of life years gained. In contrast, when the policies were described in terms of lives lost, people considered the age of the policy's beneficiaries, taking into account the number of years lived to prioritize young targets for the health intervention. In addition, young targets were judged as more valuable in general, but young participants valued young targets even more than older participants did.

Keywords: framing, decision making, policy making, judgment

Imagine having to choose between saving the life of a young person or an old person. Although painful, such decisions are inherent in the appropriation of scarce resources for public-health initiatives. For example, in the event of pandemic flu, who should receive the limited supply of vaccines and antiviral medication ( Emanuel & Wertheimer, 2006)? These decisions entail, even if only implicitly, the prioritization of certain individuals' lives over others. Are all lives equally valuable, and if not, whose lives are more valuable?

In the current article, we put aside the important issues of risk (who is at highest risk of dying?) and efficacy (for whom is the intervention most effective?; Galvani, Medlock, & Chapman, 2006) and instead focus on how people quantify the outcome of health interventions-the metric for valuing life. Potential metrics include the number of lives saved, the number of life years gained, and the number of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained ( Pliskin, Shepard, & Weinstein, 1980). These metrics imply different optimal policies. The number-of-lives metric requires that the optimal policy maximize the number of individuals being saved, assuming no priority in saving certain individuals over others. Under a life-years-saved metric, however, one would prioritize younger individuals, to the extent that they have a greater number of years left to live. Some government agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration, use life years saved to quantify benefits ( U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2006). The QALYs metric is similar but assigns greater value to lives of healthy compared with ill individuals, given the same life expectancy, and greater value to interventions that improve quality of life.

Bioethicists and public-health policymakers have extensively debated which metric to adopt ( Evans, 1997; Williams, 1997a, 1997b). The controversy reflects the inherently moral nature of placing a value on life. Aside from these debates, if we accept that public-health policies should reflect the moral values of the public, it is critical to understand how the public thinks life should be valued and the underlying mechanisms that give rise to these value judgments. Such an understanding is also relevant to the debate on what kinds of inequities constitute ageism in health care ( Kane & Kane, 2005).

Previous studies indicate that the public values the lives of young people more than those of older people ( Busschbach, Hessing, & de Charro, 1993; Cropper, Aydede, & Portney, 1994; Johannesson & Johansson, 1997; Lewis & Chamy, 1989; Ratcliffe, 2000; Rodriguez & Pinto, 2000; Tsuchiya, Dolan, & Shaw, 2000). People may value young people more than older people for a number of reasons ( Rodriguez & Pinto, 2000). Not only do young people have more years left to live, and thus receive more benefit from a lifesaving intervention, they also have fewer years lived so far and thus deserve their "fair innings" ( Williams, 1997a). For example, a 20-year-old has about 3 times as many years left as a 60-year-old (assuming an average life expectancy of 80 years); however, saving one 20-year-old is viewed as equivalent to saving seven 60-year-olds ( Cropper et al., 1994), which indicates greater value for younger individuals even beyond what the life-years-saved metric would predict. This response pattern may stem from a sentiment that the death of a younger person is perceived as more tragic and unjust than the death of an older person ( Chasteen & Madey, 2003). A similar message is conveyed in the Chinese saying, "Nothing is sadder than for the gray-haired to see the dark-haired go."

Do people use a years-left metric, a years-lived metric, or a combination of both, to value life? Under normal circumstances, years left (equivalent to remaining life expectancy) is almost perfectly correlated with years lived (equivalent to age), making it impossible to separate these two bases of evaluating life. In our study, we disentangled years left from years lived by manipulating the life expectancy of individuals in a hypothetical scenario, where individuals of various ages were described as either having a normal life expectancy or having only 2 years left due to a preexisting health condition.

If a years-left metric is adopted, value of life should be a negative linear function of age for individuals with normal life expectancy (because years left depends on age) but should not vary by age for individuals with a fixed 2 more years to live (because years left is independent of age). However, if a years-lived metric is adopted, value of life should be a negative linear function of age (years lived is age), regardless of whether the individuals are expected to live to a normal life expectancy or only 2 more years.

We explored whether the metric people use to evaluate life is influenced by how the question is asked. Past research on decision making has demonstrated the powerful influence of question framing ( Tversky & Kahneman, 1981)-two equivalent descriptions can lead to very different preferences. Framing can even influence moral behavior ( Kern & Chugh, 2009). We hypothesized that "lives saved" and "lives lost" frames would not merely alter preference between options, as shown in previous studies, but would actually invoke different psychological processes or strategies for evaluating lifesaving interventions.

Specifically, we expect the "lives saved" frame to prompt people to evaluate the benefits of the lifesaving interventions and focus on what the victims stand to gain: the number of life years they are expected to gain from the intervention. In contrast, the "lives lost" frame is expected to prompt people to consider what the victims stand to lose: the loss of life. Consequently, we hypothesize that in the "lives saved" frame, people will use a years-left metric, judging younger victims as more valuable only when they have more years left to live; and those in the "lives lost" frame will adopt a years-lived metric, judging younger victims as more valuable regardless of number of years left, because the death of a young person feels more tragic than the death of an older person ( Chasteen & Madey, 2003).

Studies 1 and 2

Method

We conducted two Internet survey studies using two different populations of participants. Study 1 included 290 college students (age: 17-33 years, M = 18.63), and Study 2 involved 503 participants recruited through a commercial survey company, with an age distribution representative of the U.S. adult population (age: 18-89 years, M = 46.42; see Table S1 in the Supplemental Material available on-line, for detailed demographic information).

Both studies used the same scenario. It presented a rationing situation similar to the 2004 influenza season, in which health policymakers must prioritize certain age groups of the population when allocating a limited health resource: a flu outbreak that would result in 1,000 deaths on an island with limited flu vaccines. Participants used a scale ranging from 0, least acceptable, to 100, most acceptable, to rate vaccination policies that varied in terms of the age and life expectancies of the beneficiaries. Each policy was described as targeting 500 people belonging to one of six age groups (i.e., 5, 20, 30, 40, 60, and 80 years of age), all of whom either had a normal life expectancy (taken from Arias, 2007) or had only 2 years to live, due to a health condition, regardless of age. These two factors (age and health status) were combined, resulting in 12 policies being presented to each participant. All 12 appeared on the same page, in the same fixed order. Policies were arranged from oldest to youngest and alternated between normal life expectancy and 2-year life expectancy, with the policy concerning individuals with a normal life expectancy presented first. For half of the participants, vaccination policies were described as saving 500 lives, and for the rest of participants, policies were described as resulting in 500 deaths (out of the 1,000 deaths expected if no intervention were undertaken; see Questionnaires in the Supplemental Material available on-line).

Results and discussion

shows mean ratings of each vaccination policy, so that higher ratings represent more value placed on the people targeted by each policy. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze the data (overall fixed effects are presented in Tables S2 and S3 in the Supplemental Material available on-line). As presented in , in general, participants in both studies valued younger targets of the vaccination more than older targets( bs per year of age = −0.29 for Study 1 and −0.20 for Study 2, ps < .001). In addition, in both studies, targets with normal life expectancy were valued more than those of the same age who had only 2 years to live: Ms = 69.50 versus 42.72, b = 26.78, t(2896) = 41.16, p < .001, for Study 1; Ms = 71.49 versus 52.26, b = 19.23, t(5022) = 23.27, p < .001, for Study 2. Thus, the participants clearly did not value all lives equally.

Of primary interest, question framing influenced the metric people used to evaluate lifesaving interventions. In both studies, there was a significant interaction among target age, life expectancy status, and framing: b = 0.36, t(2896) = 6.92, p < .0001, for Study 1; b = 0.14, t(5022) = 3.16, p < .01, for Study 2. As illustrated by the nonparallel curves in the left panels of , the lives saved framing elicited evaluations indicative of a years-left metric. Targets with a normal life expectancy were assigned values that decreased with their age, whereas all targets with a shortened life expectancy were assigned a constant value ( b = −0.47, p < .001, for normal targets, and b = −0.04, p = .19, for targets with 2 years left, in Study 1; b = −0.22, p < .001, for normal targets, and b = −0.04, p = .15, for targets with 2 years left, in Study 2). The interactions between target age and life expectancy status were significant in both studies, b = 0.43, t(2896) = 12.11, p < .001, for Study 1; b = 0.17, t(5022) = 5.26, p < .001, for Study 2. In contrast, the lives lost framing elicited evaluations of lives based on a years-lived metric. In this framing condition, targets with normal life expectancy, as well as those with 2 years to live, were all valued more if they were young. As illustrated by the parallel lines on the right panels of , the values declined by age, with similar rates for both types of targets ( bs = −0.36 and −0.30 for normal targets and for targets with 2 years left, respectively, ps < .001, in Study 1; bs = −0.29 and −0.26 for the two types of targets, respectively, p s < .001, in Study 2). There were no significant differences between the slopes in either study.

In Study 2, we also examined the influence of the respondents' age on their ratings. We found that the younger a respondent was, the faster his or her ratings declined according to target age, b = −0.003, t(500) = 3.28, p = .001. However, this effect was present only for targets with a normal life expectancy. illustrates the ratings by the typical 18-year-old participant versus the typical 80-year-old participant, as estimated from the HLM model. When life expectancy was specified as normal, the average 18-year-old participant assigned life values that decreased with the target's age ( bs = −0.32 and −0.41 per year of age in the "lives saved" and "lives lost" frames, respectively, ps < .001). In contrast, the average 80-year-old participant assigned much more equal values to all targets ( b = −0.07, p = .14, in the "lives saved" frame; b = −0.14, p < .01, in the "lives lost" frame). Thus, respondents showed an egocentric tendency, giving increased weight to the lives of people whose ages were close to their own. That this pattern emerged only in judgments of targets with normal life expectancies suggests that egocentric valuations of life are more likely when the targets of evaluation are similar to the self (assuming most participants believe themselves to have a normal life expectancy). For more information, see Additional Analysis in the Supplemental Material available on-line.

General Discussion

These findings indicate that the public does not judge all lives equally. Overall, the younger the individual, the more highly he or she is valued. Perhaps more strikingly, different question frames appeared to trigger different metrics for evaluating life. When the scenario was presented in a "lives saved" frame, respondents were sensitive to years left; when the scenario was presented in a "lives lost" frame, respondents seemed to focus on years lived. Thus, the choice between saving the life of a young person with few years left and that of an older person with many years left would be critically determined by the framing of the scenario.

The focus on years lived in the "lives lost" frame is consistent with a fair innings rationale ( Rodriguez & Pinto, 2000; Williams, 1997a): The young deserve the opportunity to live life, whereas older individuals have already enjoyed their share of life. The current study indicates that the fair innings rationale is compelling primarily in the "lives lost" frame.

One often hears about health policies in terms of how many lives would be saved, and almost never in terms of how many deaths would result. Policymakers' use of the "lives saved" framing in describing interventions seems reasonable, given the awkwardness in describing lifesaving interventions as having a "lives lost" consequence, but in so doing, it can inadvertently affect how the public evaluates the policy. To the extent that the "lives saved" framing elicits use of a years-left metric, the public would support a policy described in this way if it is expected to maximize the number of life years saved-as it is proposed, that is, before the intervention is carried out and its consequences realized. During or after an epidemic, however, evaluations of the same policy could be quite different. Now that lives are actually lost, and the public has observed and experienced the consequences, they may adopt a "lives lost" frame and, thus, a years-lived metric. Due to this shift of concern from years left to years lived, policies maximizing the number of life years saved could become incompatible with the public's considerations-perhaps even seem morally offensive-because they do not prioritize younger individuals enough, as the fair innings rationale would dictate.

What constitutes an ideal health policy is ultimately measured by its effects on the lives involved. The findings presented here suggest that people's valuation metric hinges on the question frame, as well as on their age. These findings shed light on the processes by which people judge whose life should be prioritized when health resources are scarce. Notably, a change in framing does not merely change the preference between two policies. Instead, different frames alter the computational metric that people select to judge the value of life. These factors have implications for policymakers, because they can greatly influence people's judgments, perhaps even those of the policymakers themselves. There may not be an absolute standard in valuing life, but there could be a best way to design and present policies that make the most sense to the public.

Acknowledgments

We thank Danielle McCarthy and Sean Lane for helpful suggestions on data analysis.
Funding
This research was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant 1R01AI072706, awarded to Alison P. Galvani, and National Science Foundation Grant SBE0624098, awarded to Gretchen B. Chapman.

Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interests with respect to their authorship and/or the publication of this article.
Supplemental Material
Additional supporting information may be found at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data

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