[ALawPoker]

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Wow, this is pretty harsh. Not to go all Christmas story with Scrooge on you. but... What if you had to watch the random person die from lethal injection? Or that you had to watch their funeral? Or watch what their family and friends went through once they found out.

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Then it would change things. I'd feel much more empathy as soon as you introduced that personal component. And if I thought I might have to see their funeral or something (in the future) I'd weigh that into my decision, even though I might not ultimately care at the present time (if I was able to ignore future consequence).

In case I wasn't clear in my original response, knowing that friends and family of this person will be sad is something that definitely does make me care more about a human dying than another animal.

My true answer to this question hinges on the specifics of the artificial scenario. Why does my decision have this effect? In general, I feel worse (or better) about things if I had an active hand in them. So if I deliberately chose for a person to die, I'd feel bad about it. But if it was beyond my control (and by "beyond my control" I mean also if I was involuntarily put in a situation where I had to decide between the person dying and something that I thought was worse) I would care very little. But if I chose for the human to die and for his family to be sad over something petty, I would feel bad about that, so I wouldn't choose it. My decision would bother me. Knowing that *I* caused a person this harm would bother me more than just knowing the harm was caused. But if it was a decision I'm confident in (say the other option was that my parents would die), that aspect is removed and I wouldn't feel any real remorse in watching the person's funeral (not any more so than that of a completely random person whose death I had nothing to do with). Basically, I am not happy when I make another animal's (human or otherwise) life worse. So I need a good reason to feel comfortable doing that.

You can say stuff like "what if you had to watch him die or talk to his family" etc., but you can say similar things for the animals too. What if you had to spend time associating with the chimp, and he became a really good companion and you even started to teach him a little sign language and he did a lot of funny tricks, and then you had to watch him die. But yes, these circumstances would warp my preferences if they existed.

But in terms of actual feelings and desires, the idea of a random person dying doesn't bother me. (Only knowing I caused the harm bothers me.) When I heard on the news today that there was a storm in Alabama that killed 20 people, my thoughts were "hmm, that sucks, oh well." I imagine it would be about the same if I heard that 20 dolphins died in some sort of oil leak accident. I'd be like "ooh, poor dolphins," but I wouldn't really care a whole lot and would just keep flipping the channel.

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I just find it interesting that you (and others) don't value random human life much at all.

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I find human life remarkable. When you really take a step back and think for a while about the complex ways we function (in relation to all the other animals), it's incredible. We're a modern day hallmark of how awesome evolution is. And for that, I value human life. I mean, the root of the value is that I value the evolutionary process, and really nature in general. Humans just happen to be an extension of that, in the same way that people who value a God also value His creations. But I don't see any objective significance in it. A human life does not have innate value to me. The personal relationships that we form with each other gain significance, and even in the absence of any personal relationship our natural sense of empathy usually makes us care at least a very small amount about total strangers or people we've never met. So human life has a very high *potential* to be something I value, but I don't automatically value it just because it exists. And I don't try to convince myself to feel a certain way about something because I think I "should" when I naturally don't. It's not some absolute wall to me.

If I hit my funny bone, that has more of an adverse effect on my day than reading about 3 civilians dying in Iraq. If my dog gets hit by a car it saddens me a lot more than if I read about a plane crash killing 200 people in Kansas. It just does. It's how I feel. And I see no point in being ashamed about that or afraid to admit it. But I understand why it can come across as harsh or even shocking.

Sorry for the long post. The sad part is I intentionally tried not to ramble on.