Originally Posted by
Lead Balloon
So the little old lady sitting alone and freezing in her home, who'd rather go to the warm shopping centre to meet her friends and take the risk of contracting C-19, would be 'sentenced to death' if she made that choice? If yes, presumably it would be her doing the sentencing? I know what my dearly-departed Granny would have said and done about all this. Her life; her choice.
But back to the point you keep avoiding.
Would you advocate that our society spend - let's pluck $100 Billion - to save one innocent life? Yes or no.
Would you advocate that our society spend $100 Billion to save two innocent lives? Yes or no.
Three? Yes or no.
If you've answered 'yes' to all of the above, we'll have to agree to disagree.
If you've answered 'no' to all of the above, what is the number at which your answer changes from a 'no' to a 'yes' and what is the basis for the change at that number?
We as a society make decisions about how much to sacrifice to save lives, all day, every day. That's why we have a road toll. It could be zero, but the cost of making it zero outweigh the astronomic costs of doing it. We could build unsinkable ships and uncrashable aircraft. We could put every life-saving drug on the pharmaceutical benefits list.
Okey doke, before you light too many more candles at the altar of cost-benefit analysis, let's be very clear on its shortcomings broadly and more specifically when applied in regimes such as public health, environmental matters or cultural issues. In order for CBAs to be performed properly, both sides of the equation, the costs and the benefits, must be expressed in a common measure. That common measure is typically dollars, often dollars as Net Present Value in order to address timing factors.
Broadly, CBA loses its objective utility whenever the analysis has to include non-market factors, that is, elements that are not marketed, not openly and routinely bought and sold, such that their dollar value cannot be determined objectively. When CBAs have to include factors such as lives (public health), something like air quality (environmental management) or say a cave of historical significance (cultural issues) the value assigned to those factors is arbitrary. And as soon as you introduce that arbitrariness into the equation, the utility of CBA breaks down. It is no longer a cut-and-dried objective analysis, it is now just an articulation of subjective values.
If you want to get into a your values versus someone else's values debate, fine and beaut, but don't try to dress that up under the veil of an objective tool like CBA. And no, I'm not going to play The Price Is Right - Human Life edition. While I may not be the sharpest tool in the drawer I am most assuredly not dumb enough to step out onto that slippery slope. If you want to assign a dollar value, knock your socks off. My only caution would be to watch your footing because it's a long way down.