This forum lacks

Know what this forum lacks? It lacks a certain logical flair to it. I forward that we remedy the situation with a discussion of modern philosophy.

I shall begin with a discourse on existentialism and worth.

How can the life of a person be given a worth? What truly is a worth?

Throughout history, human life has been ranked according to its perceived worth. A peasant was not worth nearly as much as a prince, for example. They believed that people are born into their worth as a person, and could not change this. They backed this stagnant philosophy through religion, claiming that a person that was born higher was appointed so by God.

In the late 18th century, things changed. Mostly due to the impact of German philosophy, scholars started to believe that human worth was not truly inherited, but instead was the cause of a person's own actions. The German philosophers believed that if you removed religion from philosophy, you were better able to asses the human condition. They came to the conclusion that the human condition was a result of undervaluation of human worth; that humans are intrinsically born worth the same, but were worth more or less by their actions.

In recent philosophy (postmodern), the current trend is to believe that one can never truly assess the worth of a human's life, as it is all a matter of perspective. Because any evaluation of worth is influenced by the assessor, it cannot be firmly established to any sense of a set norm. Without any static point of reference, it would be folly to evaluate it.

Although I normally completely disagree with postmodernist philosophy, even I must admit there is much weight to that argument. In addition, my Christian beliefs definitely steer me towards the valuation of all human life as equal; ironic that through my religion, the same religion of the medieval philosophers, I argue the exact opposite philosophy.

Please, tell me your belief about this topic.

As much as I love a good debate, I'll have to agree with you on this point. There is no way you can classify the worth of an individual. The whole idea of ranking human life according to material wealth is, I believe, most blatantly upheld by John Calvin and Calvinism. He also pioneered the idea of the Protestant work ethic and how God loves you more if you have more money.

The post-modern idea that the value of human life cannot be assessed is in direct conflict with very many traditional teachings. Confucianism, for example, was based solely around the fact that nobles were worth more than the serfs (one of the points that made it so popular with the nobility in ancient China). And then there are religions that pretty much switch back and forth between the two viewpoints. A good example is Christianity where this particular subject has been touched upon and interpreted differently often. It all depends on how one interprets Scripture.

I don't think it's possible to tell whether or not anyone has worth or what that worth may be in a universal perspective. Mainly because since reality is relative to our perspective it's impossible to have a universal perspective of reality. But people can have worth if one has labeled another's worth as X. As long as you've labeled something as such, and you believe it to be that way, within your reality it is that. Now this obviously doesn't mean that because one has labeled another's worth as X that all people see that persons worth as the same. So I think it's possible for people to have worth, but worth in itself is relative even if you ignore the idea of relative realities.

But then that applies to anything we set a price to. All worth is relative, even human life. You could even say that nothing is worth anything. Or anything is worth everything.

Yes, of course. Basically everything is relative. D:

Except indisputable universal facts!