PvI#42: The Worth of a Human Life w/ Carneades the YouTube Star

The anonymous policy wonk who runs the Carneades.org YouTube channel joins Mark and Bill to discuss the core concept of his new book, Are All Lives Equal?: Why Cost-Benefit Analysis Values Rich Lives More and How Philosophy Can Fix It.

Should economics really be measuring the value of life at all? Can it do this in any principled way? Can economists really understand how much joy cat videos really bring us? What should parasitic micro-organisms value? Does the choo-choo train of peas going in a child’s mouth continue in a similarly fun way within the body? Were all the world’s religions originally infections diseases? No question is off the table!

The image is by Sahana Prasanna. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content.