Humans and infinite value: reductio argument

[Spencer Lo]

In many of my discussions, especially with Christians, I often come across the claim that humans are infinitely more valuable than animals. Many proponents of this claim also believe that torturing an animal for fun is intrinsically wrong. Below I try to show that these two beliefs are inconsistent. 

1. A human person is infinitely more valuable than an animal. (premise)
2. Therefore, the interests of a human person are infinitely more weighty than the interests of an animal. (from 1)
3. If a human person desired to torture a puppy for fun, then the human person's interest in torturing the puppy is infinitely more weighty than the latter's interest in not being tortured. (from 2).
4. Therefore, the human person's interest in torturing a puppy for fun outweighs the latter's interest in not being tortured. (from 3)
5. Therefore, all things being equal, a human person does not act wrongly in torturing a puppy for fun. [absurd conclusion]

[Tim Gier]

Does it necessarily follow from 1 & 2 that any human interest is more weighty than every nonhuman interest?

[Spencer Lo]

I think that's the right way to resist the argument -- perhaps only some human interests have infinite weight. But if that's the case, then the meaning of premise (1) needs to be clarified. Those who accept premise (1) need to give a fuller account of what they mean, and only then can it be determined whether the argument works.

[Tim Gier]

I suppose that a person could say that there's a difference between A) the value of a life and B) the value of the experiences in life.  That way, to say that human life is infinitely more valuable than nonhuman life might only involve life or death situations while to value the experiences in life might allow one to treat dissimilar interests dissimilarly (i.e. to value freedom from torture more than fun). On such a view then, to experiment on a nonhuman in order to save a human life might be acceptable but to experiment on a nonhuman to satisfy some trivial human desire might not be.

Spencer Lo said:

I think that's the right way to resist the argument -- perhaps only some human interests have infinite weight. But if that's the case, then the meaning of premise (1) needs to be clarified. Those who accept premise (1) need to give a fuller account of what they mean, and only then can it be determined whether the argument works.

[Spencer Lo]

Someone could make that distinction, but then he or she would have to contend with the following: suppose we have a severely brain-damaged human in a permanent state of unconsciousness--without treatment the human will die peacefully in 1 hour, but with treatment he will live an extra 10 seconds. On the other hand, we have a sick puppy who, if treated, will live a happy long life. If we could only administer treatment to one individual, it would have to be given to the human if human “life” has infinite value, but that’s clearly absurd—the value of experiences can’t totally be divorced from the value of life. There may be other angles that one might pursue but then the account of "human life" would start to look very complicated and ad hoc.

[Tim Gier]

The value of human life is not the value of the biological life of the human organism, but it is the value of the life of the human person.  A severely brain-damaged human in a permanent state of unconciousness is no longer a human person.  

[Spencer Lo]

I don't think that account is open to Catholics, because they believe personhood starts at the moment of conception.

[Tim Gier]

I was raised Catholic, but have purged my memory of most of the tenets of that faith! 

[Spencer Lo]

Interestingly, I posed a variant of my hypothetical to a Catholic and he said he'd still choose to save the human!

[Tim Gier]

I believe that whatever most people think about the "soul" is very confused. The concept of soul appears incoherent to me.