Valuing Life_ A Plea for Disaggregation

442 DUKE LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 54:385
idea that workers in poor nations should have the “same” protection
as workers in wealthy nations is an error, rooted in a “moral
heuristic” involving the equal worth of all human lives—a heuristic
that sometimes works well but that also misfires. 190 The real question
is the effect of different numbers.
If the Chinese government uses a VSL of $6 million, on the
theory that its citizens should not be valued less than those of wealthy
nations, social harm will almost inevitably result. In the easy cases,
the forced exchanges will be ludicrously harmful to the people whom
they are supposed to help. In the hard cases, in which the
beneficiaries pay only a fraction of the cost (which is mostly borne by
others in the same nation), the nation will be spending far too much
of its money on risk reduction (or more precisely, on reducing the
risks that happen to get onto the regulatory agenda). The inefficiency
of an extremely high VSL will be felt acutely and in many forms,
including decreased employment. But if the costs of risk reduction
will be paid by third parties—for example, wealthy nations—then
people in the poor country will be helped even if risk reduction is
based on an excessive VSL.
Of course the citizens of poor nations would almost certainly be
helped more if they were given cash (supposing that it would not be
squandered) rather than in-kind benefits. But if cash redistribution is
not possible, regulatory benefits, provided for free or for a fraction of
their cost, remain a blessing. If, for example, a global institution uses
a worldwide VSL of $1 million, and if that amount exceeds the
domestic VSL of people in poor nations, it is possible that poor
people will gain a great deal if the resources for risk reduction are
provided by wealthy nations. In the harder cases, the simple point is
that many of the intended beneficiaries of regulation are in fact net
gainers.
B. Policy and Practice
How, then, should global institutions, such as the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assess the monetary
costs of risks faced by people all over the world? As I have suggested,
the answer turns on the purpose of the assessment—on what issue the
answer is supposed to address. There is no good acontextual way of
190. On moral heuristics, see generally Cass R. Sunstein, Moral Heuristics and Moral
Framing, 88 MINN. L. REV. 1556 (2004).