Valuing Foreign Lives
86 Pages Posted: 29 Mar 2013 Last revised: 8 Mar 2014
Date Written: March 7, 2014
Abstract
Democratic governments are typically concerned with protecting the lives of their own citizens. But decisions made by domestic institutions often affect foreign as well as domestic lives. In such circumstances, domestic institutions must choose how many public resources to devote to protecting foreign lives. This Article argues that foreign valuations implicate distinctive psychosocial, philosophical, economic, and political challenges that deserve their own analyses; analyzes existing practices of foreign life valuation in US regulatory and nonregulatory contexts; and presents a theoretical framework for evaluating when and how to value foreign lives within domestic policymaking.
Keywords: valuation of lives, military policy, regulatory policy, international law, cost-benefit analysis, social cost of carbon, SCC, foreign policy, disaster assistance, international armed conflict, torts committed by armed forces, othering, psychic numbing, obligations to foreign persons, VSL
JEL Classification: N40, I18, L51, K23, F35, K33, K32, K13, K00, K20, K30, K29, Q26
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation