Quite a bit of research has been done concerning the valuation of items we consider "incommensurable," i.e., things that cannot be bought or sold at any price; cannot be reduced to a numerical number or exchanged for riches of any kind. These "things" include human life, one's honor, and, human relationship (compare "making love" with prostitution).

In a study about the commodification of human life concerning financial incentives for organ donation -- Evans, John H. COMMODIFYING LIFE? (etc.) (2003) 28 J. Health Pol Pol'y & L. 1003, 1022, the author noted that people

"tend to consider dollars that circulate within the same institutional sphere to have the same moral status."

As Evans' ...

Quite a bit of research has been done concerning the valuation of items we consider "incommensurable," i.e., things that cannot be bought or sold at any price; cannot be reduced to a numerical number or exchanged for riches of any kind. These "things" include human life, one's honor, and, human relationship (compare "making love" with prostitution).

In a study about the commodification of human life concerning financial incentives for organ donation -- Evans, John H. COMMODIFYING LIFE? (etc.) (2003) 28 J. Health Pol Pol'y & L. 1003, 1022, the author noted that people

"tend to consider dollars that circulate within the same institutional sphere to have the same moral status."

As Evans' study of attitudes concerning the payment of money for human organs demonstrated:

"equating the surgical removal of organs with an object outside the medical sphere – such as the college education [a] family could buy with [a] $25,000 hypothetical payment [for a "donated" organ] – violates our sense of the sacredness of these [two] institution's boundaries."

For further reading on the subjective experience of money and moral conundrums associated with the payment of money to compensate people for loss, see The Cost of a Thing is Your Life, at the Settle It Now Negotiation Law Blog: http://www.negotiationlawblog.com/2007/01/articles/negotiation/money/the-cost-of-a-thing-is-your-life/