Post by RS Davis on Aug 4, 2004 16:04:35 GMT -5
Is approaching immortality immoral?
by: Ronald Bailey
I'm speaking later this week at the World Transhumanist Association's annual meeting, Transvision 2004. Below is a short version of my remarks.
What if a biomedical researcher discovered that lives were being cut short because every human being was infected in the womb by a disease organism that eventually wears down the human immune system's ability to protect us? Until that discovery, the "natural" average lifespan was the proverbial three score and ten years.
Once the discovery is made, another brilliant researcher devises a "vaccine" that kills off the disease organism. Suddenly the average lifespan doubles to seven score (140 years). In a sense, this is exactly where we find ourselves today. There are no "vaccines" yet to cure the disease of aging. But biomedical researchers understand more with each passing year about the processes that cause the increasing physical and mental debilities that we define as aging. Aging is no more or less "natural" than cholera, smallpox, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, or any disease that cuts short human lives.
Nevertheless, a number of prominent bioethicists and other policy intellectuals are arguing that we should oppose any such life-doubling "vaccine" on the grounds that it would interfere with the "natural" course of human life.
For example, in the current issue of the journal Gerontology[/i], bioethicist Daniel Callahan claims in a debate with Gregory Stock that doubling human lifespans would be a net negative for individuals and society.
Callahan makes three arguments. First, he points out that the "problems of war, poverty, environment, job creation, and social and familial violence" would not "be solved by everyone living a much longer life." Second, he asserts that longer lives will lead mostly to more golf games, not new social energy. "I don't believe that if you give most people longer lives, even in better health, they are going to find new opportunities and new initiatives," Callahan writes.
And thirdly, Callahan is worried about what longer lives would do to child bearing and rearing, Social Security and Medicare. He demands that "each one of the problems I mentioned has to be solved in advance. The dumbest thing for us to do would be to wander into this new world and say, 'We'll deal with the problems as they come along.'"
Callahan's first argument is a non sequitur. People already engage in lots of activities that do not aim directly at "solving" war, poverty, environmental problems, job creation, and the rest. Surely we can't stop everything until we've ended war, poverty, and familial violence. Anti-aging biomedical research wouldn't obviously exacerbate any of the problems listed by Callahan and might actually moderate some of them. If people knew that they were likely to enjoy many more healthy years, they might be more inclined to longer-term thinking aimed at remedying some of those problems.
Second, Callahan's "longer life equals more golf" argument is not only condescending, it ignores the ravages that physical decline visits on people. Callahan, age 73, sees a lack of "new energy" among his confreres. Even if people are healthy at age 75, their "energy" levels will be lower than at age 30. They may not begin "new initiatives" because they can't expect to live to see them come to fruition.
[glow=red,2,300]Continued...[/glow][/b]
by: Ronald Bailey
I'm speaking later this week at the World Transhumanist Association's annual meeting, Transvision 2004. Below is a short version of my remarks.
What if a biomedical researcher discovered that lives were being cut short because every human being was infected in the womb by a disease organism that eventually wears down the human immune system's ability to protect us? Until that discovery, the "natural" average lifespan was the proverbial three score and ten years.
Once the discovery is made, another brilliant researcher devises a "vaccine" that kills off the disease organism. Suddenly the average lifespan doubles to seven score (140 years). In a sense, this is exactly where we find ourselves today. There are no "vaccines" yet to cure the disease of aging. But biomedical researchers understand more with each passing year about the processes that cause the increasing physical and mental debilities that we define as aging. Aging is no more or less "natural" than cholera, smallpox, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, or any disease that cuts short human lives.
Nevertheless, a number of prominent bioethicists and other policy intellectuals are arguing that we should oppose any such life-doubling "vaccine" on the grounds that it would interfere with the "natural" course of human life.
For example, in the current issue of the journal Gerontology[/i], bioethicist Daniel Callahan claims in a debate with Gregory Stock that doubling human lifespans would be a net negative for individuals and society.
Callahan makes three arguments. First, he points out that the "problems of war, poverty, environment, job creation, and social and familial violence" would not "be solved by everyone living a much longer life." Second, he asserts that longer lives will lead mostly to more golf games, not new social energy. "I don't believe that if you give most people longer lives, even in better health, they are going to find new opportunities and new initiatives," Callahan writes.
And thirdly, Callahan is worried about what longer lives would do to child bearing and rearing, Social Security and Medicare. He demands that "each one of the problems I mentioned has to be solved in advance. The dumbest thing for us to do would be to wander into this new world and say, 'We'll deal with the problems as they come along.'"
Callahan's first argument is a non sequitur. People already engage in lots of activities that do not aim directly at "solving" war, poverty, environmental problems, job creation, and the rest. Surely we can't stop everything until we've ended war, poverty, and familial violence. Anti-aging biomedical research wouldn't obviously exacerbate any of the problems listed by Callahan and might actually moderate some of them. If people knew that they were likely to enjoy many more healthy years, they might be more inclined to longer-term thinking aimed at remedying some of those problems.
Second, Callahan's "longer life equals more golf" argument is not only condescending, it ignores the ravages that physical decline visits on people. Callahan, age 73, sees a lack of "new energy" among his confreres. Even if people are healthy at age 75, their "energy" levels will be lower than at age 30. They may not begin "new initiatives" because they can't expect to live to see them come to fruition.
[glow=red,2,300]Continued...[/glow][/b]
