Pricing Lives The Political Art of Measurement

This book discusses how human lives are equated with the material, and argues that pricing lives lies at the core of the political; in fact, as in Plato or Hobbes, and in the Weberian ethics of responsibility, measurement is considered to be one of its central features. Ariel Colonomos argues that this measure relies primarily on human lives and interests, and that the material equivalence to lives is twofold. The equivalence is a double equation, as we pay for lives and we pay with lives. This double equation constitutes the measurement upon which the political equilibrium of a society depends and is thus a key constitutive part of the political. The book adopts two approaches, both with an interdisciplinary perspective: one explanatory and the other normative. First, it explains the nexus between existential goods and material goods, drawing on a detailed analysis of several case studies from contemporary politics, both domestic and international. Second, it discusses normatively the material valuation of human lives and the human value of material goods. Value attribution and the question of the material equivalent to lives are of relevance not only for political theory and philosophy, but also for sociology, history, international relations, and legal studies.

1 - The many merchants of Venice
2 - Henry V: An all-too-human gambler
3 - The challenge of measuring the measures: Proportionality
4 - The challenge of weighing up the value of hostages
5 - The challenge of deciding upon reparations
6 - The challenge of pricing pandemics
7 - A political theory of hostage-taking: Patriarchalism
8 - A political theory of the victim: Philanthropism
9 - Lest we forget the future: The fallacy of temporal discounting
10 - Out of sight, out of mind?

Ariel Colonomos is Research Professor at CNRS and Sciences Po in Paris where he is affiliated with CERI. He has taught in the Political Science department at Columbia and at SIPA, and has held numerous visiting positions in the US. His work focuses on international relations and political theory, and his recent works include Moralizing International Relations (Palgrave, 2008), The Gamble of War (Palgrave, 2013), and Selling the Future—The Perils of Predicting Global Politics (Hurst/OUP, 2016), which received the ISA Ethics section book award.