Value of a life

This calculation based approach it is possible to place value on lives. This is a difficult thing to stomach, and not necessarily easy to live up to as a working principle either.

Nonetheless, we have to make choices that implicitly value human lives. There are some flawed ways we think about value when it comes to “human life” vs other decisions (see utilitarian tradeoffs).

It becomes a bigger issue when government agencies shy away from calculating how much saving a life costs with different programs, and doesn’t use that information to guide better policy and programs.

A potential metric to use for calculations: quality adjusted life years.

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