Dictionary definitions do not come close to exhausting the meaning words. We'll end up defining words by other words in endless wordplay. You can choose to define value as "intrinsic worth", but then you'll reply nothing has intrinsic value.

Alternatively, you can think of value as: how should the life of an "average human being" be considered in terms of importance to you.

If that's not enough for you, then there's not much more to say.

Thank you.

I believe intrinsic worth exists.

I believe importance exists, and I believe that the average person is important.

However... how do I assign a metric? You asked "What is the value of a human life to you?" That is, "What is the importance of a human life to you?" and "What is the intrinsic worth of human life to you?"

As god is my witness, I can't in good conscience answer these questions. Others may be able to, but I can't. At least not in good conscience. Not when it comes to deciding what to give up to retain a human life.

On the other hand, importance and intrinsic worth is not something that I have to exchange for something else of equal importance and equal intrinsic worth. I can utilize such things, for instance, the importance of a car is to carry me from one place to another, and the intrinsic worth of a car is its ability to help me gain distance over time.

In this vein, the importance of human life is that I can cooperate with them, form societies, with all societies' amenities. There are social, emotional, and life-sustaining aspects in the importance of the life of a human being. Similar to their intrinsic worth.

The context in which I ask the question is because it seems to me that whatever value or worth or significance a person has is being cast into doubt, at least by me, given how a large portion of the population in "developed" countries are behaving within this pandemic.

If people know the risks of going out to large social gatherings or sporting events and they don't mind dying or possibly killing someone, then I'm OK with it, so long as everyone consents to that activity. The problem is that many infected likely did not consent to others doing as they pleased.

But then this pushes the issue to a larger perspective, in which now we care about "our safety", when prior to the pandemic issues like the War on Yemen, Sanctions on Iran and anything else you can think of that doesn't apply to "the West", is just sidelined as if these things aren't that important. Sure. There are plenty of exceptions, people doing good work, getting informed, informing others, etc.

But it causes me to question how valuable we actually think people are in general. I often get the impression that it's not much.

My impression is that the value of a human life depends on who you ask. A lot of variables play into how much a person values another, like familial relations, kindness, and memorability of another person. It is hard for me to say if, in general, humans tend to see each other as less or more valuable than they should be, since I view value as a relative measure. On one level, I am not sure what the general consensus is of Earth’s population on the matter, so it is likely hard to assess in an objective manner how much humans value each other.

Thank you for explaining your reason to ask the question.

The value of a human life differs little or none from that of any other living thing...

I place a stick of wood on the fire only to notice that, soon afterwards, driven by the heat, an army of ants I did not know resided there begins feverishly scurrying about, hoping to find a safe passage out for their queen. Upon discovering no such avenue, and pressed by the circumstances, many leap into the void and are vaporized by the fire, much like those human beings who leapt from the Twin Towers on that fateful day...

My girlfriend cries out to me from the laundry room: a snake has cornered her there, his head protruding from underneath the door. I have no choice but to cut it off with the tip of a forcefully driven spade shovel, much like the sword that severed Cicero’s head from his body as he hung it out, bearing it to his assassins...

Finally, a gadfly alights upon me, and I swat it with the alacrity that the Athenian jury swatted Socrates, their gadfly, for questioning their accepted beliefs...

Mere life, friends, has little value, whether human or animal. It can only borrow value from something higher than itself which it sustains.