Do we really value identified lives more highly than statistical lives?

摘要

In 1968, in a paper about valuing ways to reduce the risk of death, Thomas Schelling1 distinguished between "identified lives" and "statistical lives." Identified lives are the miners trapped in a mine or the child with a terminal disease—specific people who need help now. Statistical lives are those people, unidentifiable before the fact and often after as well, who will be saved by a new safety regulation, public health program, or environmental standard. Schelling observed that people seem to be willing to pay more to save an identified life: "Let a six-year-old girl with brown hair need thousands of dollars for an operation that will prolong her life until Christmas, and the post office will be swamped with nickels and dimes to save her. But let it be reported that without a sales tax the hospital facilities of Massachusetts will deteriorate and cause a barely perceptible increase in preventable deaths—not many will drop a tear or reach for their checkbooks."1