Flamy writes an essay

Joseph Choi
Thibeault
ERWC
15 November 2018

		Mors Mihi Lucrum
	The debate over the value of an individual’s life remains a well-tread topic over the centuries. Cases of its applications have come up, as with the terrorist attacks on September 11. Though possible to place a monetary value on a human’s life, one’s self-worth and purpose in life cannot be quantified so easily.
	As the adage goes, time is money. As a person’s life can be quantified by time, its monetary value can then be calculated by the amount of money they make within a given span of time. When that person dies, it is then the responsibility of others to evaluate that life’s monetary equivalence simply and formulaically. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, a “small city’s worth of grieving families and the government established an unprecedented fund to compensate” for those families grieving over their lost ones (Ripley 2). This is done by calculating the amount of money that the victim(s) would have gained over the course of their remaining lifespan, had the attacks never happened, and adding a bit more for non-economic losses like “pain and suffering”. The amount is then equalized by the amount received from non-charity sources. This serves as a means of compensating for any missing money not yet accounted for. However, many families perceive this act of generosity as insufficient, which is simply not the case, whatsoever. As law professor Philip Bobbit mentions with regards to this topic, “We’re not trying to make you psychologically whole. Where we can calculate the loss is in economic loss”, a reminder that the moral value of lost lives can never be truly quantified, but the monetary value, the material value lost by that person’s nonexistence can, in fact, be found, can be calculated (Ripley 28).
	Regardless of an inability to objectively place a moral value on a life, one may yet still make a subjective assertion as to their life’s worth. Within one’s mortal lifespan, one ought to bring to bear their life’s worth in the time they have. As Steve Jobs told Stanford University graduates in a commencement speech in 2005, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose”, because death will equalize all lives in the end (18). Any expectations set by others, hubris, or fears of embarrassment or loss of image are all made meaningless in the face of death. Fellow cancer patient and famed film critic Roger Ebert once stated, “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear”, agreeing with Jobs’ statement about living life to its fullest, as both have done, despite the many hardships thrown at them (Jones 32).
	None of this devalues any one man’s life relative to another in the jurisdiction of justice. Special master Keith Feinberg, who had administered the compensation funding to the victims of the terrorist attacks in September 11th, recounts how “the law required that I give more money to the stockbroker, the bond trader, and the banker than to the waiter, the policeman, the fireman and the soldier at the Pentagon”, which, while fair in a material sense, is unfair to humans in a moral sense (2). Indeed, Feinberg later goes on to assert that “all lives should be treated the same”, a concept that on the paper of the Constitution is made clear, but not so in court (7). However, this is an equal, fair treatment of the victim’s deaths in terms of monetary compensation, in that their families are paid in an amount equal to that which the victim would have made.
	The value of a life cannot be objectively quantified, but the material value that it would have generated can be. One must determine the value of their life by themselves, such that it may be fulfilled to its fullest. When this condition is made true, it is only then that death, the cessation of life, is its own reward: A conclusion to what one has done in life.


	Works Cited

Feinberg, Kenneth. “What Is the Value of a Human Life?” This I Believe. National Public Radio,
	25 May 2008. Web.

Jobs, Steve. Commencement Address. Stanford University Commencement Weekend. Stanford,
	CA. 12 June 2005. Address.

Jones, Chris. “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man.” Esquire, 16 Feb. 2010. Web.

Ripley, Amanda. “What Is a Life Worth?” Time, 11 Feb. 2002. 22-27. Print.