“What is Suffering Worth?” Perspectives Across Disciplines on the Treatment of Victims

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This interdisciplinary Edited Collection explores a crucial but little-studied issue with growing importance today: what is the value of harm suffered by victims, whether of terrorism, crime or natural disasters. In law, politics, economics and public opinion, answers differ widely, and unequal treatment is the norm.Across the globe, victims evoke a range of feelings, from compassion verging on celebrations of heroism, to denial, anger, indifference and even repulsion. Those reactions translate into wide variations in legal and economic responses to their harm.The Issue brings together experts in law, economics, criminology, history and philosophy to compare perspectives from the United States and France. It is the outcome of a symposium held at the Maison française/French House of Columbia University in New York on 10 September 2019.