Abstract
Life-extending therapies and optimistic discussions of their promise and probable effect are an increasing dimension of serious scientific and philosophical discussion. If such therapies ever become reality (Bodnar et al. 1998; Weinrich et al. 1997), and if our bodies could repair damage caused by disease and aging “from within” (McBearty et al. 1998) the effects not only on personal health and survival but also on society and on our conceptions of ourselves and of the sorts of creatures we are would be profound (Thomson et al. 1998; Pedersen 1999; Mooney and Mikos 1999). If we could switch off the aging process(Lanza et al. 1999a; Lanza et al. 1999b) we could then, in Lee Silver ’s words, “write immortality into the genes of the human race” (these possibilities were rehearsed in the BBC TV Horizon program).
This chapter has been published earlier as: Harris, J. 2004. Immortal ethics. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1019: 527–534.
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Notes
- 1.
I have benefited from the incisive comments of my colleague Søren Holm.
- 2.
For the record, the immortal’s name was Wowbagger (p. 9).
- 3.
And we should note that Wowbagger himself did find something meaningful to do through all eternity.
- 4.
I am grateful to Simon Woods for insights into the un-dead.
- 5.
I deliberately choose the term “generational cleansing” for its obvious unpalatable connotations.
- 6.
In a personal communication. The calculations are those of Søren Holm.
- 7.
Douglas Adams used a similar argument to show that the costs of traveling in time to eat at “the Restaurant at the end of the universe” would bring the price the price of eating at the most expensive restaurant of all time easliy within the reach of a humble budget. “All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for”. See his The restaurant at the end of the universe. Pan Books. London. 1980: 81.
- 8.
See Chap. 19, this volume, for a critique on this view.
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Harris, J. (2013). Immortal Ethics. In: Schermer, M., Pinxten, W. (eds) Ethics, Health Policy and (Anti-) Aging: Mixed Blessings. Ethics and Health Policy, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3870-6_14
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