I thought I'd direct your attention to a generally sensible blog post I noticed recently:

As a general matter, many people are reluctant to say that a person is ethically obligated to sacrifice herself (i.e. end her life prematurely) for the sake of others. This principle may run afoul of our ethical intuitions in at least one case.

Suppose that Jeff makes several billion dollars on Silicon Valley. When asked which causes he plans on donating to, Jeff replies: "Just one. I will fund research on life extension (cryogenics, therapeutic cloning, xenotransplantation, etc.) so that I can live for as long as possible." Are Jeff's actions unacceptably selfish?

As it becomes more apparent to a wider audience that engineered healthy longevity - medicine to repair the biochemical damage of aging - is a very plausible prospect for the decades ahead, we'll see much more discussion on the topic. As that discussion broadens, I fully expect it to follow much the same lines as bioethical handwringing over past advances: a decade or so of public idiocy that is followed by an era in which people quickly forget that anybody ever claimed the advance in question was a bad idea. Look at in vitro fertilization back a ways, or the changing public discussion over stem cell science.

Sadly, I don't think much can be done about the contingent who do actually believe it is "unacceptably selfish" to invest in research that will benefit many people, one of which happens to be the investor. They are a millstone about the neck of human civilization, and an unfortunate consequence of prosperity - beneficiaries ignorant of the processes by which their comparatively great wealth is created and maintained. To be ignorant of how to create wealth is a luxury good.

But when it comes down to it, people are usually individually positive about living longer, healthier lives. Few would volunteer to die tomorrow while healthy and vigorous, and most people invest a great deal of time and energy into anticipating and defeating threats to life and limb. So I think it'll work out in the end; we just have to suffer the decade of public idiocy first, in which every dumb justification for forcing billions of people to suffer and die is trotted out and given a good airing.

Posted by Reason at August 12, 2008 7:58 PM | TrackBack (0)