Death of a Child vs Deatn of an Adult

[Eli]

What's worse?

Let's say that a child is someone younger than 10 years.

I don't remember myself as a kid actually thinking about what I'm doing. It was like being a machine. Something happens, you automatically react and that's it. No ideals, no plans, almost no awareness.

With babies it's even more extreme. All they do is drool and make unpleasant smells and noises.

So why do we treat the death of a kid as something more tragic than the death of an adult? Isn't the life of a 40 years old man more precious than the life of a 1 year old drooling machine that's not even self aware?

[Whoha]

its that whole survival instinct thing and people not wanting bad things happening to their children.

[SlowwHand]

Having a chance. Same argument that applies to abortion. You may have just killed the cure for cancer.

[Bill3000]

I think it depends, really. Partially on the "having a chance" argument, but not really. It's more dissapointing for a tenager to die, because a teenager should be prepared for the real world far more than a child. Unlike a child, which historically had a higher cahnce of death, a teenager is far more likely to grow up. Thus, it's a greater tragedy for a teenager to die over a child.

Oh, and there's the whole innocence factor as well, I guess.

[Eli]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Having a chance. Same argument that applies to abortion. You may have just killed the cure for cancer.

Negligible.

[SlowwHand]

No, no, no. Half of all teenagers need to be whacked.

[rah]

And No parent should ever have to bury one of their children.

And a 50 year old man has at least had a decent amount of life. A 17 year old hasn't.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
No, no, no. Half of all teenagers need to be whacked.

The ignorance, traditional rebellious attitude, and recklessness of teenagers has nothing to do with whether or not teenagers deserve to live more than babies or other little children.

[VetLegion]

Death of an adult is more damaging to the society.

[SlowwHand]

There's one right there, past whacking point.

[Caligastia]

The younger you are, the more innocent you are. If you hear about the death of some kid you never knew, you are more likely to feel sad about it than if it was an adult because for all you know the adult was a dirtbag.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by rah
And No parent should ever have to bury one of their children.

And a 50 year old man has at least had a decent amount of life. A 17 year old hasn't.

Yup.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Eli


Negligible.

At some level all lives are equal. Its certain wrong to take any innocent life.

A strictly utilitarian POV, is that when you kill the one year old, youre probably killing 80 years of life, while killing the 40 Yo youre killing only the remaining 40 yrs. The kind of logic used in priortizing transplants. Of course the same logic would prioritize a HEALTHY 40YO over a 1 year old with a fatal disease likely to kill them in 5 years.


Also note use of word innocent. We tend to think of the young as more innocent. Havent done bad. Should the good an adult has down count in the other direction? In a civ built on the depravity of Man, we assume most have done more ill than good in their life


Innocent in certain contexts. If its a policeman whos shot a 40 YO, we want to hear if the guy was a criminal. If a policeman shoots a 1 yo, we assume the baby was not a criminal.

Also, its just plain mean to harm kids. Who are MORE likley to be weaker, etc. By extension, its crappy to kill them.

[Bill3000]

Also note use of word innocent. We tend to think of the young as more innocent. Havent done bad. Should the good an adult has down count in the other direction? In a civ built on the depravity of Man, we assume most have done more ill than good in their life

Innocence in the case that we are using does not mean "lack of sin." Innocense implies ignorance of the experiences of the world. A 40 year old man, despite how good said man is, still isn't as innocent as a child, who hasn't experienced the world nearly as much.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Also, its just plain mean to harm kids. Who are MORE likley to be weaker, etc. By extension, its crappy to kill them.

Yet of course you are allowed (and often encouraged) to hit children if they do something you don't like. No one seems concerned over the fact that they are far smaller and weaker when it comes to allowing a 200 lbs. man to hit them with a belt.