Does every living thing have moral value just for being alive, and can a life be priced?

Hank weighed deaths by years of life lost in 2009 and in 2013 accepted an economic value of about $10 million per life; in 2026 he called the belief that lives are valuable protective against harm. Since 2020 John has held that every human life has incalculable, equal value, and blames unjust suffering on systems that fail to reflect it.

Axis: all life has intrinsic value ... value depends on kind or capacity; lives can be weighed

Positions by date: 12 records in 12 videos. The position was refined (2013, 2023), never reversed, in these records.

John

date	how	position	video
2020-03-03	first on record	John says that means understanding the incalculable value of every human life, including the viewer's.	Consciously Experiencing Human Dignity 00:03:24
2020-10-15	restate	We got good at healing femoral fractures because humans can understand that serious illness or injury does not negate the value of a human life.	Civilization and the Lies We Love 00:02:55
2023-03-14	restate	John does not believe that needing care makes a person less valuable, as the idea that he is merely a burden implies.	The Seduction of Despair 00:02:10
2023-03-28	restate	John asks whether Robert David really died of TB or of poverty and systems that do not act as if all human lives are equally valuable.	My Tuberculosis Reading List 00:02:26
2025-03-25	restate	John says these diseases are cured not only by biomedical interventions but by reforming systems to include more people and reflect that all human lives have equal value.	Taylor, Dr Pepper, and My Anxiety Strats: It's Question Tuesday 00:03:53
2025-11-04	restate	Returning to the question he has asked since 22, John answers that suffering is unjustly distributed because we fail to build systems reflecting that all human lives have equal value.	The Real Question 00:03:53
2025-11-13	restate	John says it is important to see people not as patients or statistics but as people whose lives matter as much as any of ours.	Fighting TB in Kids: A Discussion with Doctors without Borders 00:59:28
2026-04-28	restate	John says Rebecca's loss was not necessary or inevitable but, as the MCOE's entrance says, came from the idea that some lives matter less, the root of all that is wrong with the world.	What I Can't Show You 00:04:14

Hank

date	how	position	video
2009-03-18	first on record	Hank holds that a death over 80 is less tragic than one at 40 or 20, and that deaths should be weighed by years of life lost.	Dr. Manhattan's Dangle and Brain Crack 00:01:19
2013-03-22	refine	Hank accepts that a human life can be given an economic value (about $10 million by economists' methods) and locates its value in enabling life rather than preventing death.	How Much is a Human Life Worth? 00:03:13
2023-06-23	refine	Hank says our lives are valuable not because we are guaranteed to be here later but because we are here now.	Understanding Cancer Survival Rates 00:10:06
2026-01-09	restate	Hank says the one thing very protective against harm to people is the belief that lives are valuable, and pushing back against our brains' belief that some lives are more valuable than others.	There is Only One Source of Value 00:01:56

Background

date	how	position	video
2011-06-13	background	Hank says nobody really values every organism for being alive: the bacteria in his mouth have no value and he doesn't care if they die. (playful)	Google Is Alive! 00:03:35