Consciousness and Irreplaceable Value

When someone dies, it’s no consolation to observe that new people are born every minute. This is true not only of people we love, but of any stranger, and perhaps any conscious creature. People, and perhaps other creatures, are thought to have irreplaceable value: value that, when lost, cannot be replenished in kind even if it can be replenished in amount. But precisely what irreplaceable value is and why we have it is surprisingly underexplored. Phenomenal consciousness initially seems to be a prime candidate for the ground or source of the irreplaceable value of persons: it appears to be a source of uniqueness, and it has been argued that it gives rise to reasons that demand respect, which is a characteristic of irreplaceable value. However, as attractive as this may be, I argue that it is surprisingly difficult to establish.