Abstract
I distinguish between aging as merely getting chronologically older and aging as a process involving change. I then consider some prominent theories of value (hedonism, desire-satisfaction theory, and objective state theory) and examine how each theory evaluates the value or lack thereof involved in aging in either sense. I also discuss people’s subjective attitudes toward aging and show how the facts of such attitudes will play a role in each theory in determining the actual value of aging. I conclude by suggesting that everyone, young and old alike, would benefit from a cultural shift away from our current obsession with youth.
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Notes
- 1.
I discuss the distinction between aging and getting older in Section “Aging and Getting Old.”
- 2.
I would like to thank my colleague Ali Hasan for suggesting this thought experiment.
- 3.
Of course, there are those who would say that we cannot apply the concept of chronological aging to God because God is outside of time. Getting older requires moving through time, from the beginning point in time of one’s existence to the present moment, and this is something that God does not do. My remarks, then, presuppose what most laypeople, I think, presuppose about God, namely that He is in time. But nothing here hinges on what the correct understanding of God’s relationship to time is.
- 4.
Again, whether it makes sense to suppose that God could be in time and yet not change is not of importance here.
- 5.
One could define instrumental value in terms of any one of these, that is, we could say that X has instrumental value if it actually is a means to something of intrinsic value, or we could say that X has instrumental value if it either possibly or probably is a means to something of intrinsic value. Except when it becomes important for the issues at stake, I will simply elide these different views.
- 6.
This definition is somewhat at odds with ordinary usage of the notion of instrumental value. According to the definition given, if X produces anything of intrinsic value, then it is instrumentally valuable, even if, on balance, the effects of X are negative. Ordinarily, it is probably the case that we would only describe some X as instrumentally valuable if the balance of its effects was good.
- 7.
I have ignored other effects of Olga’s 40 years in a coma, such as, for example, what has happened to her friends and family and what her relationships with them will now be like, or what sort of career she will now be able or unable to pursue. But these are not so much effects of chronological aging but rather of ‘being out of it,’ as it were. In any case, let us just assume that Olga is welcomed back into a loving circle of friends and family and that she takes up her old work as a skilled carpenter. Thus, we do not need to worry about Olga’s last 10 years as being plagued by loneliness, poverty, or loss of purpose.
- 8.
- 9.
Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, can be seen as holding such a view. David Brink attributes such a position to John Stuart Mill. See Brink (2013). Mill’s progressive principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, Chapter 3.
- 10.
Once again, I am putting aside concerns about what may have happened to friends, family, career, and so on. See footnote 7.
- 11.
For some people, it is the isolation away from the rest of society that is troubling. My own grandmother, whom I was forced to move into a care center against her initial wishes, finally adjusted to the center, but she once said to me, ‘It wouldn’t be so bad here if there weren’t so many old people.’ As a matter of social policy, we should at least consider options for better integration of care centers into the larger community.
- 12.
For further discussion of the issues concerning gender and aging, see the essays in Urban Walker (2000).
- 13.
Recall the responses that were made to Barbara Bush in virtue of her unwillingness to cover her full head of gray hair.
- 14.
For a discussion of these theories as theories of well-being, see Crisp (n.d.).
- 15.
For a discussion of Hedonism and the nature of pleasure, see Feldman (2004).
- 16.
Of course, any such decisions about funding some project will involve choices about not funding other projects. So I do not want to be claiming that it will always be our best choice to fund research that reduces the physical effects of aging. Also, see again my remarks about instrumental value in footnotes 5 and 6.
- 17.
This is not an entirely apt term, because these objective states may very well essentially involve subjective states of humans or of other sentient creatures.
- 18.
- 19.
For a discussion of the badness of death, see McMahan (1988). Death and the value of life. Ethics, 99, 32–61.
- 20.
I can still have desires satisfied after I die – for example, if I want my children to lead happy lives, and they do so after I die, then my desire is satisfied – but I cannot be aware of this fact. There is a debate as to whether this fact undermines the desire-satisfaction theory of value or at least calls for some sort of alteration of the theory. This debate goes beyond the chapter, and I will simply point out that death will make it the case, for most of us, that a great number of our desires will cease to be satisfied, in particular, our very strong desire that we continue to exist and to be aware of our loved ones flourishing.
- 21.
I would like to thank Geoffrey Scarre for pointing out the difference in value between a life cut off abruptly with loose threads and one in which the threads come together to make a coherent whole.
- 22.
I would like to thank Richard Fumerton, Ali Hasan, and Geoffrey Scarre for comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
References
Crisp, R. (n.d.). Well-being. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/.
Farrelly, C. (2008). Aging research: priorities and aggregation. Public Health Ethics, 1, 258–267.
Farrelly, C. (2013). Empirical ethics and the duty to extend the ‘Biological Warranty Period’. Social Philosophy and Policy, 30, 480–503.
Feldman, F. (2004). Pleasure and the good life: concerning the nature, varieties, and plausibility of hedonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fumerton, R. (1990). Reason and morality: a defense of the egocentric perspective. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Hume, D. (1978). A treatise of human nature (Ed.: L.A. Selby-Bigge). Book III, Part I. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
McMahan, J. (1988). Death and the value of life. Ethics, 99, 32–61.
Urban Walker, M. (Ed.). (2000). Mother time: women, aging, and ethics. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
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Jeske, D. (2016). Aging, Getting Older, and the Good Life. In: Scarre, G. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39356-2_19
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