Even adamzerner probably doesn’t value his life at much more than, say, ten million, and this can likely be proven by revealed preference if he regularly uses a car. If you go much higher than that your behavior will have to become pretty paranoid.
That is an issue with revealed preferences, not an indication of adamzerners preference order. Unless you are extraordinarily selfless you are never going to accept a deal of the form: “I give you n dollars in exchange for me killing you.” regardless of n, therefor the financial value of your own life is almost always infinite*.
*: This does not mean that you put infinite utility on being alive, btw, just that the utility of money caps out at some value that is typically smaller than the value of being alive (and that cap is lowered dramatically if you are not around to spent the money).
I think you are mistaken. If you would sacrifice your life to save the world, there is some amount of money that you would accept for being killed (given that you could at the same time determine the use of the money; without this stipulation you cannot be meaningfully be said to be given it.)
Even adamzerner probably doesn’t value his life at much more than, say, ten million, and this can likely be proven by revealed preference if he regularly uses a car. If you go much higher than that your behavior will have to become pretty paranoid.
That is an issue with revealed preferences, not an indication of adamzerners preference order. Unless you are extraordinarily selfless you are never going to accept a deal of the form: “I give you n dollars in exchange for me killing you.” regardless of n, therefor the financial value of your own life is almost always infinite*.
*: This does not mean that you put infinite utility on being alive, btw, just that the utility of money caps out at some value that is typically smaller than the value of being alive (and that cap is lowered dramatically if you are not around to spent the money).
I think you are mistaken. If you would sacrifice your life to save the world, there is some amount of money that you would accept for being killed (given that you could at the same time determine the use of the money; without this stipulation you cannot be meaningfully be said to be given it.)
Good point.