My mantra in life has always been that my value as a human comes from whatever I perceive my value. This view has been partly influenced by my stoic readings.
However, I've been reading Hobbes recently, and according to him, like when selling a good the price is set by the buyer and not the seller, human value in society is what is perceived by other people, regardless of what a person thinks of themselves.
This seems to make sense to me as well. How do I reconcile my beliefs if both of these points of view seem true to me?
Explain. Do you think they don't necessarily contradict each other?
Grayson Torres
Not OP, but how?
Jordan White
What's the value of a stranger? Why is your value different? Because you're biologically hardwired to be an egoist
Samuel Ramirez
The value you place on yourself is not the same thing as the value others place on yourself, duh.
Nolan Clark
no both are equally meaningless - easiest way to realize that is to imagine that you sacrificed your whole life to pursue the answer to your question, how dumb would that be?
Robert Gray
If you are enlightened (buddha) and your life's value and self perception isn't affected from the way people percieve you the first one is more true depending on the level of enlightenment .
If you are more of no-ego's evil twin "ultra ego" as are the overwhelming majority of people (rich piana) the second point is more true depending on the level of your ego.
Human "value" is not monetary value, or any sort of quantifiable value. I don't think the Stoic even think that word. You are the Health of your soul which is attained through practice. One of the practices is the one with the circles and brothers and everything, and boils down to, in more modern terms, expanding your subjectivity onto the totality of humans.
Hobbes' theory has its origin in the Societal, not in the Soul. The Soul is afterwards deduced from society
Please, "biological hardwiring", especially as used by someone without an understanding of the theory presupposed in the term, should not be a part of any attempt at semi-serious philosophical discourse
Jace King
your value as a human comes from growth in whatever direction you choose to grow in. The only way to fuck that up is if you keep changing directions.
