What Makes a Human Being Valuable?

Human beings are dependent on bonding and relationships, which renders them vulnerable and gives them the power to violate others. It is also true that we all value things. For example, we value friendships, careers, prosperity, environment and knowledge. These seem to be good and worthy of pursuit. Many things are valuable, not merely as things worth having for their own sake, but as things worth having for the sake of something else. The question remains, where does the chain of values end.

When it comes to Indian Philosophy, it offers Puruṣārthas and human creates value through Puruṣārthas. This bestows value on us as providers. That is the unique capability of the human being. Unlike animals whose bodies are consumed by their predators, humans create value that can be consumed by other human beings. Not only can we create value and exchange value, we can also enhance value. We can gather property. By gathering things, we give ourselves value. The more creative we are in adding substance to the list of values, the less likely we will be overcome by Gilgamesh’s problem of death, Sisyphus’s problem of futility, Boethius’s problem of cosmic insignificance, problem of suffering, or any other problem that undermines our sense of value/purpose or human life and happiness. 

In this contribution, an attempt has been made here to show that we keep building and collecting more and more and become valued members in society as someone who possesses a lot of things with reference to the Vedas, Upaniṣads and to some extent the Purāṇas. ‘Valuable’ here means being accountable to word and deed, and having a sense of duty means to fulfil the tasks with reliability, dependability.  Because we think that we are not bound to solve all the problems in the world; our duty is only to avoid creating problems. We must not be responsible for evil to others; we must not harm others; if we harm, we must repair the damage.  This is called Ethics of Responsibility and the answer to the question of what makes human beings valuable and meaningful.