Is radical lifespan extension an ethically acceptable goal for human enhancement? Why or why not?
The development of radical life extension will no doubt alter our pre-existing lives but the question is if that change will be positive or negative. It is in my opinion that life extension should not be considered morally ethical due to the ways it will change our relationship with death and in the following essay I shall speak on five points. The inevitability of death, the equivalent of forgoing life support to suicide to the extension, the change in severity of death, the value of death, and the concept of happiness linked to life and death.
The inevitability of death; just one of the many changes to the human condition if life extension were to become massively accessible to the public. “Rare is the medical intervention that does not involve drugs in some way…whatever form life extension takes, it’s likely that drugs will be a necessary part of it” (Davis, 2015, p. 166). With the consumption of drugs comes the choice (whether that choice is healthy or not, recommended or not) as to continue usage or halt. With this being said, life extension will be a reversible decision. The introduction of this reversibility goes hand in hand with the disappearance of the value life. Aging and death will become elective.
Aging, together with dying from predictable, age-related causes, have always been unavoidable, unalterable aspects of the human condition. However, for those who can afford life extension, normal aging and a normal lifespan will no longer be unavoidable aspects of the human condition. Instead, aging will be a choice (Davis, 2015, p. 166).
It goes to say that even if one were to decline life extension and go about living their life with the natural aging process, the simple act of aging and death go from being a part of inevitability, to something elective.
If one has declined the extension of life but remains able to afford it, then one can always change their mind and start living an extended life. The very fact that at any moment they can take a pill, or inject a serum, or eat a cookie (whatever form life extension may come in) to live for eight hundred years swallows up the entirety of carpe diem.
If you don’t feel that death is inevitable and predictable within a few decades, you won’t be forced to learn to transcend death by becoming involved in things beyond yourself, such as children, future generations, a suitable cause, or something else that will last beyond the time you die. If you can afford life extension, then you might procrastinate and use your time poorly. After all, you can always take the cure and buy more years if you feel the press of time (Davis, 2015, p. 169).
So if you are in fact one to believe that the sheer purpose of life is the beauty of its unknown origin and end, then the possibility of taking control of it injures the entirety of what you considered your very existence. In turn those who can afford yet decline extending their life, might suffer a reduced sense of self meaning just by the very fact of living in a world where this extension is available.
Hand in hand with taking control comes the questioning as to if life extension can be compared to that of life support. Is to forgo life support a form of suicide? And is forgoing life extension ‘morally equivalent’ to forgoing life support? (Davis, 2015, p. 170) In order to assess these questions we must look at what suicide constitutes, that of which the Oxford Dictionary of American English defines as “the action of killing oneself internally.” Based off of this definition of suicide we can conclude that both declining and terminating life support can in fact be considered a form of suicide. Therefore if it is considered suicide to decline treatment for cancer, which in effect may exclude you from six months of continued life- then it is makes logical sense to claim that by declining the extension of life, conferring one from possible centuries of continued life, is another form suicide.
To counter argue this is to mention the killing versus letting-die distinction. This states that in order for something to be classified as suicide it must involve active killing, while forgoing life support or declining life extension is simply a form of letting-die. “Killing someone involves initiating a fatal causal sequence, where as letting someone die involves allowing an existing fatal causal sequence to run its course” (Cartwright, 1996, p.358). Choosing not to participate in life extension is one allowing their life to “run its course,” whereas choosing to participate in life extension constitutes one quite literally initiating causal sequences. Once one has chosen to swallow that pill, inject themselves with the serum, or eat that special cookie that keeps them alive for 800 years and by doing so, they are actively putting the control of their death in their owns hands. Once this is done, they are the one’s who are now in charge of when they wish to die; where as those who live out a natural life span would seem to have no control over when it is their turn to die.
This brings up the morality of suicide once more because now instead of allowing oneself to die from whichever the cause may be (car accident, cancer, old age), one is purposefully choosing to be the decider of when they die, just as if they were to be the decider in killing themselves (in a world that didn’t invent life extension). It would seem that a sense of irony begins to sweep over the discussion of this topic as the very purpose of life extension is that in itself: extension of life, yet if and when one ends the treatment, they are in a way committing suicide. Now with all of this being said, the topic of suicide in this discussion would only become relevant if one were to hold the view that suicide is immoral- resulting in life extension being immoral as well (seeings that the end result of life extension is chosen death). “Does introducing life extension into the world put such people in a position where they are damned with extended life if they take the cure, and damned for committing suicide if they don’t? (Davis, 2015, p. 170).
This position of damnation brings us to the severity of death. Those who do not par take in the extension of life for reasons other than choice, their concept of death will become a lot worse. “We have a relationship with death. We expect it, avoid it, grieve it, and try to cope with it” (Davis, 2015, p. 165). So for those lacking access to extending their life and whom must die at a normal age in a world where some people can live for centuries, this grievance of death will create a death burden. It is a most widely accepted opinion that the younger you are when you die the worse off your death is and this is due to to the number of years you might have lived and death burden can be explained as how bad a death is and how bad it is to die at that specific age.
If we were to calculate the average lifespan of people undergoing life extension by subtracting all age-related causes of death from the picture, on estimate we would live somewhat over eight hundred years. At any given time your odds of death are exactly the same as they are when you are twenty one versus seven-hundred and fifty-two. With this being said, those who do not get a life extension might live for centuries but miss out on even more centuries of life when they die; thus an immaculate death burden. This will specifically impact those who don’t have the means to extend their life past the normal expectancy and must die at a normal age in a world where living for centuries is reality.
Ancient Greek philosophers as far back as the era of BCE such as Lucretius and Epicurus, have sought to show that there should be no death burden because death is not bad and that it is entirely irrational to fear or postpone it. Lucretius was one to believe that the attempt to prolong life beyond a natural lifespan is due primarily to the deep rooted horror being dead. However death is not something that can be reasonably feared due to the fact that while one is alive, they are alive therefore death is irrelevant to them (because they are alive). And when one is dead, they are dead and therefore death is also irrelevant to them (because they are dead). Prolongevists however “wish to prolong human life not because they dread the state of being dead but because they value the state of being alive” (Overall, 2005, p. 24). However I argue this position and pose the question as to what is it about death that causes us to value life more (specifically when no one knows what exactly happens after death) and who is to say that the state of being dead is not one to be valued as well?
“Consider, also, how utterly unimportant to us was the past antiquity of infinite time, that elapsed before we were born. This, then, nature exhibits to us as a specimen of the time which will be again after our death. For what does there appear terrible in it?” (Lucretius 1997, 140).
In regard to this perspective it is not a matter of if a human being will die, but when they will die and the amount of time after one is dead whether it begins in the year 2004 or the year 2040, makes no difference to the infinity of time that will continue to go on after their quietus. It is because of this that nothing significant will be gained by an individual if they were to prolong their life.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2). The need to extend life to an unnatural existence of eight hundred years seems to be a “psychological, moral, and spiritual weakness of modern humanity that, limited by our feelings of inadequacy and our too-strong attachments to the things of this world, we are no longer able simply to acquiesce in the rhythm of life and its inevitable destiny, death” (Overall, 2005, p. 32). Radical life extension beyond what is considered a natural lifespan simply goes against the fate that nature has given us. Through this fate that nature has bestowed upon us, there have been accounts of people who live to be ninety eight or one-hundred and for whatever reason it may be, they just weren’t happy as the child who died at fourteen from cancer whom was happier than most one-hundred year olds alive, and for the sheer reason that she simply appreciated the fourteen years she was given. This is not to say that the children who die at a young age is not devastating, but to prove that the appreciation of life is relative regardless of the mathematical number of years that goes into it. This is the law of Universal Nature, that states “one could be just as happy in a short life as in a long one, and, therefore, the prolongation of life was not an important matter” (Overall, 2005, p. 38)
I believe that radical life extension is not an ethically acceptable goal because it robs our humanity of the significant meaning it might have in regards to honoring the stages in our inevitable life cycle. I believe that radical life extension is not an ethically acceptable goal because it strips us of the inevitability of a natural process and makes death a punishment for those who lack the access to life extension. And I believe that radical life extension is not an ethically acceptable goal because it affects everyone’s relationship with death whether they partake in the extension or not, aging will become an elective, and death will become a choice. As I mentioned before, if you are in fact one to believe that the sheer purpose of life is the beauty of its unknown origin and end, then the possibility of taking control of it injures the entirety of what you considered your very existence. Life is a gift where aging and death are exactly what makes our lives that gift.
Bibliography
Davis, John K. “Four Ways Life Extension Will Change Our Relationship with Death.” Bioethics, vol. 30, no. 3, 2015, pp. 165–172.
Cartwright, Will. “Killing and Letting Die: a Defensible Distinction.” British Medical Bulletin, vol. 52, no. 2, Jan. 1996, pp. 354–361.
Overall, Christine. Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: a Philosophical Inquiry. Univ. of Cali- fornia Press, 2005, pp. 23–63.