Are People Inherently Valuable? | Jordan B Peterson 

The problem with this assessment is that the baseline is that humans are destructive, bad and flawed. If we accept that then we don't believe we can change, that we can get better, and we guarantee bad outcomes - most problematically for the future of humanity

Prayers for you and your loved ones.

People are inherently valuable because they all have the potential to become valuable in some way

Nature is inherently destructive... And beautifully creative.

So we should dismiss the notion that all persons are equal or not? From this clip, it seems he argues both ways. He even says... "We should let it go" but then he says it would be terrible to let it go, because without it your social relationships don't work as well. I am confused.

I think people just mix lots of things together: 1. Right to life matters equally 2. Social value isn’t 3. Right to increase social value. This 3rd point seems to be what people get so sentimental. Often time it’s the feeling that a person such as criminal, or a mental illness patient, or someone we hate should not have the chance to get a higher social value is equated to ‘that worthless person’. That’s when we label it with stuff like racism, discrimination or hatefulness

Yessss the rare and elusive bearded Dr. Peterson makes another appearance. Legend has it that his beard cleans his room.

Great stuff sir. Im trying my damndest to get myself straight with your help Thank u.

I think people who do good things, are gentle and enrich the lives of people around them have more worth than assholes. Also, when you don't tell someone "I love you because you have a phd" you say "I love you because you're you, you're kind to me and I like your personality, your temperament", and we may say that that has inherent worth. If that person cannot be replaced, it must be because it has inherent worth. So we can be worth something for someone or humanity in general. But we also have potential. It seems like humans can't just BE. Happiness is important. Happiness has inherent worth

To quote Jeff Bezos, Success doesn’t come from our gifts/virtues, it comes from our choices. This resonates with me on a personal level. Tests indicate I have a 162 IQ with a very high intellect. The consequences of my poor/bad choices, in-spite of these gifts, has caused endless frustrations and self doubt leading to a life I find wanting. Thankfully, it’s never too late to become the best version of ourselves through education, listening to worthy mentors and working towards a worthy, clear, and very specific future we would love to live. JUST DO IT, and make your bed while you’re at it!!

What makes something valuable? A valuer.. so we are valuable to each other and some animals but when taking us off our planet there’s no known value bc there isn’t a valuer. Our value is just limited to valuers.

The movie Jurasic Park comes to mind. Change one thing, and everything changes.

Our inherent value comes from our ability to tap into the truth of our intentions as well as our ability to create what we will.

I love hearing Sensei Peterson speak and reason things out. Especially when I (think I) understand what he's saying.

I think the answer is empathy. Seeing your weaknes in another tells you that he who is without sin let him cast the first stone.

So we should trick ourselves into believing people have value, even though they don’t, because it just works better that way. Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Somehow. 🤔

All life has meaning and value, and the more intelligent and self aware it is, the more value it holds. The universe is a life producing mechanism. But you don't need a God for this to be the case.

People have inherent value because organizing society based on that assumption produces better results?

I have not watched the entire video so apologies if Jorden says something approximating this. I think the reason people have value is because we must believe that we do. A person must think that they themselves have value for if they don’t have value then why work, why improve why live, if human life doesn’t have value then why would we do anything like search for purpose and instead simply partake in hedonistic pleasures? So to some extent we benefit from thinking that we ourselves have value, and as social creates with empathy, it stand to reason that we would think other people also have value, which is where I think the idea that people have value came from.

I believe that the intrinsic value comes from the concept of 'value' in itself. We bestow value on something in the material world if it has one ACCORDING TO US people, i.e. it is a social construct that is true at a very very basic, almost axiomatic level It is as much an intengible part of us as hue is to color, our DNA and our mitochondria - it is a structure in our psyche, and as material as any neurochemical phenomenon in our brains. If all people be default think human life is valuable and human beings are intrinsically valuable because of them being human beings, then this is what gives it it's value. It is indeed circular, because it is at the very base of morals and working sociatal structures. Would the life of a human be valuable to some dinosaur, is it valuable to the astronomical bodies or to our pet dog? This is where the question of scale comes in. By arguing for the opposite - that humans don't have intrinsic value, thinkers bestow upon objects and processes of the material universe the very human ability to judge and bestow value. We have no scientific proof that solar winds, planets, the distant stars, rock formations, crystals, physical processes and evolutionary mutations have any capacity to be wise enough to detract value off from what we consider our intrinsic value. So, arguing from the elitistic, high horse of nihilism that nothing has value, including we humans, then this implies that any statement, including this one, also has no value. 1. The object of statement 'nothing has value' is everything, the whole universe. It is an absolute statement that negates a predicate of the object through the use of the word "not". 2. The set '(any and all) statements' is a subset of the set 'everything', and 3. 'this particular statement' - 1. - is an item of the subset 'any and all statements' So the predicate 'is valueless' applies also to the 2 and 1. Hence it is contradictory, disproves itself, and can be dismissed as a faux paradox without meaning, a simple nonsensical statement of an idiot child that nothing can be learned from. This path - the one that negates baseline intrinsic value and substitutes it with acts of obedience towards a deity - be it God, new age entities or gurus, cult leaders, or a Fuhrer, Stalin or Mao - this proves to be a very dangerous path that leads to catastrophic policies, wars, failed states. On the other hand, societies that have agreed to value humans for being humans, generally thrive. So the second proof that we have intrinsic value is factual, derived from the lessons of history. Being blind to your intrinsic value is at the base of an ugly multiverse of personal suffering, addictions, foolish judgements and so on. It is like living in a house that misses some of it foundational stones. Everything you erect on top of this basis is bound to become skewed, twisted, crooked, a joke that onlookers laugh at. You try to work and live in that house, but constantly bugs get in through the cracks and bite you, the walls are not at 90 degree angles so your furniture is creaking and breaking, the water pipes leak due to pressure from the tweaked walls. A NIGHTMARE! BUT if you instead recognize your intrinsic value, you will be able to fix the edifice correctly. Self-compassion is the cure for much of it as it was for me. It sure is a lot of heavy lifting to fix the crooked house but the result ultimately is a nice home in which you and your family can thrive. To use another analogy, self-compassion is like the core of your body, around which you build your skills, world view etc. It could very well be that you excel in some areas and lag behind in others. That is completely normal. This then is not intrinsic, but ADDED vale - what you bring to the table, how far were you able to develop your talents that you were born with. Added value can't substract from intrinsic value just as adding a floor doesn't magically make the foundation dematerialize. There are many societies and individuals that build magnificent crooked structures upon the sand. Artists can paint magnificent painting and still be pathetic drunkards that constantly think about past trauma. Then, the harder the fall, the more work in gathering the stones back together. But it can be done. In face of practical issues of creating good lives and good societies, I would simply cop out and say: recognizing intrinsic worth should be axiomatic, because it is hard-wired in us and is the motor that drives our personal and collective well-being.

human value concept: is from the individual Creator of every human being.. it shows up through many faiths, but it is Creator-inherent. it also shows in practice, that apart from Creator that we have need of a Redeemer or that which brings us to interface with Deity.. they're in the blueprints of conscience & our design, in spite of all else.

I have an awesome grandfather who would say all is valuable

Ravi Zacharias touches on this in the following video. *How Can a Good God Allow Evil? Does Life Have Meaning? - Ravi Zacharias:* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-it7mhQ8fEq0.html

People are inherently valuable on account that God values them, so much so that he sent his only begotten Son to die and rise again to redeem them from their sins that they might through faith obtain forgiveness and on top of that everlasting life. That which God values is of utmost precious value.

managing higher things demands one to focus less on lower or be reliant on others to do the rest in a distributed way, functioning structure work that way. whatever purpose one may have, there is always going to be threats and dangers for that and will have to not do or be something in order to be that way. otherwise things dont actually get fixed, it just gets messed up because everyone wants others to be the same way and it ain't working. human beings as life do hold value or worth in terms of life, not as in action but life itself. malevolence does not prove their worth to be invalid, it merely proves that something causation wise has been done wrong or is going wrong. destructiveness is a natural occurrence, for something to be finished and another thing to happen. destruction is a necessity. it itself has no good nor bad. people can be a cancer involuntarily both to oneself and to the rest depending on how they are being or acting since that's how all symptoms are formed. its an inclusive universe so if we are cancer to the planet we would be cancer to ourselves. backlash. the very fact we are all trying to protect ourselves as life simply to experience it is proof that we consider human life as important. its not even a choice you have, its an obligation in order to for alignment. you look at a damn rock and say that rock has some value by seeing its qualities, you can't expect the rock to assign value to a human being. its the life that assigns value to the rest, so its rubbish to even jump to the question of whether life itself has value or not. even when slaughtering happens it's also done by seeing something as important. the importance can differ for all subjects, in stones or rocks or metals it might be qualities, in life it might be characteristics, in a situation of rough edge it might be aptitude. every subjects and their needs have different kinds of importance at different times. as for human beings, its not competence but consciousness. they are far far apart in their orientation

More so we are a valuable species just like evolution results in most living planets. We our inherently valuable there. We as it change the fabric of reality greatly.

"Humans are inherently valuable" is not equivalent to the claim "humans are inherently virtuous." The latter was defended by no major philosopher who defended the former. Also, for any dispute, arguments can be made for both sides, but that doesn't mean the arguments are equally sound. Whether people always *think* they are inherently valuable doesn't mean they aren't. Just because something isn't obvious doesn't mean it isn't a first principle. Peterson's strengths are causing his weaknesses.

Human life is precious than any stock...Humans trade that life to-'survive' their own...humans would only suffer on a greater extent...

I think what you Jordon need to educate People on is intrinsic vs extrinsic.

Reminded of the Hillary golden nugget: «America is great, because America is good»

I want to hear him tell CORALLL....COORRAAALLLLL!?!!

We did overpopulate, even if its not with those exact problems, we grew much others. Specially if one's to consider other species, which are equally as "valuable" as us, no?

3:40 - wrong, these are *dominance* hierarchies, not hierarchies of value or ability (bar the ability to dominate, including by nefarious means).

Professor, kindly consider the categorical imperative.

Maybe people are inherently valuable because of our potential. We all have a potential for greatness, especially in groups. Especially when the group is coherent. Especially when these coherent groups have a good, great even, leader. Especially when these coherent group with great, well, we'll competent, yeah, that's the word; especially when these coherent groups with competent leaders have a goal, a righteous goal, a goal that is for the betterment of the individuals within the group, including the leader, and for the group as a whole, and if we can manage it, which isn't exceptionally obvious that we always can, for the betterment of the larger community outside the group. You also brought up our Devine Spark, for a second, yes, but you did. Maybe that has something to do with our being inherently valuable. Maybe our Devine Spark has something to do with our conciseness. Maybe it is our conciseness. That would seem to make sense because we seem to be the only animals with conciseness. Or at least, we seem to be the animals who have the most complex conciseness. Although, you could make the argument that that is up for debate, that being, the dolphins, and orca whales, and possibly octopus, octopuses, octopi, octopusi, no, I think it's octopuses. Anyway, where was I? …………..................………............……… oh yeah! So, maybe it's our conciseness, or potential for greatness, or Devine Spark, or some combination of those things. Maybe it's our ability to think, deeply, about abstracts, about seemingly alien ideas, to think deeply about nearly and sometimes completely, absolutely nothing at all, and conversely, very, very, very specific things, scenarios, end stage scenarios, our own mortality, our own potential immortality, morality, immorality, the similarities between those last 4 words, the potential interconnectedness between those words, their potential origins, and most importantly, the fact that a list containing our ability to think deeply about topics could very well be endless. Maybe we are inherently valuable. Maybe we're not. Maybe it's so incredibly complicated and complex that it would take multiple intellectual, psychological, and philosophical geniuses to figure it out. Maybe it's so incredibly simple, maybe it's so incredibly simple, maybe it's- hmm, maybe it is simple. Maybe it isn't. Maybe that's the fun of it. But I don't think we know the answer, let alone that we can answer it definitively.

Is anybody going to The Autum 2021 Fairs???? Is anybody buying Funnel 👀 🎂Cakes!!!!! 😋 FUN FUN FUN for all ages!!!!!!!!! Anybody going to Disneyland ?????????? God bless you all. 🙏

Butterflies don't even kill each other but humans do.. I'm starting to think a human life isn't worth more than a bugs life .. Cain in the Bible got a pass and a second chance for killing his brother but we don't?

My reaching hand says otherwise

....So in closing, all people have intrinsic value because all people have a moral duty to treat yourself AND others as if you do... Love thy God (whom you are one with) with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul is the first great commandment, and the second is likened to the first: Do unto others as you would do unto yourself

Tough times create tough men. Tough men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create tough times.

The question is, valuable towards what or who? If X is valuable towards Y but Y has no value then by extension X has no value either. I suppose this is to much of a nihilistic way of thinking, but also unfalsifiable.

No

I was once told that $14.29 or something like that in the 80s was the absolute avarage value of a human being, I'm sure its a little more now due to inflation. Inherent value is going to be a subjective view based on the individual saying it and it like the how long is a piece of string question.

1:07 - wrong; conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes and soaring fertilizer prices are combining to create a food crisis of unprecedented proportions. As many as 828 million people are unsure of where their next meal is coming from. That's 10% of all people on this planet right now experiencing food insecurity or famine. Four billion people - almost two thirds of the world’s population - experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year. Over two billion people live in countries where water supply is inadequate. Half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025. Some 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030. By 2040, roughly 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress. Most scholars agree that people need a minimum of about $7.40 per day to achieve basic nutrition and normal human life expectancy, plus a half-decent chance of seeing their kids survive their fifth birthday. And many scholars, including Harvard economist Lant Pritchett, insist that the poverty line should be set even higher, at $10 to $15 per day. What happens if we measure global poverty at the low end of this more realistic spectrum is that we see that the number of people living under this line has increased dramatically since measurements began in 1981, reaching some 4.2 billion people today.

I didn't think you and Benatar had a very good debate. It's Benatar's daemon, it's a specific scenario, it was never intended as an outlook on life, the point of contention was if the outlook is necessarily included a-priori inside the parameterisation of good and bad. The question is; "When is Benatar's daemon a proper philosophical equation?". No offence man, but I think you could have handled that way better, you have to admit it's a good ethical toolset for some people to have before deciding to start a family. Maybe as an idea, it's niche, and it won't penetrate human nature. Rather it will creep around the edges, as the mirror image of the school-shooter style nihilism, and just harmlessly act as population control in the most elevated, ethical manner? How about that, Huh?! Please discuss properly! >:( Love, Cat

I woke up today seeing numbers, just like Neo from the Matrix. I wonder what does that mean.

I have no value ! Out of the eight billion people in the world. I am the least valuable. I work at a car dealership as a janitor so I less than human.

couple minutes explaining why the argument is wrong, in different ways

Sort of late, might as well mention I upload waffles every day As a side note I idolize you dr Peterson. I hope you live long and prosper!

All people are inherently valuable. Some realize it and some don't . As a result the live accordingly. Those who know they are valuable will do valuable things and those who don't think they are valuable don't . A diamond in the dirt and on the show stand have the same. The difference is that one has become useful and the other still did not

This cannot intellectually coexist in the same mind as someone with your takes on abortion.

People are inherently valuable because we're made in God's image.

He said nothing.

Exactly without God humans have no intrinsic value.

No we're just animals lucky to have some mutations that make our brains go brrr. Nothing special tbh there are just as many other unique animals out there...