Commentary on Dan Dennett [DD] (2011) “Whole-Body Apoptosis and the Meanings of Lives” On the Human.
DD: “…which would you prefer for your last months on earth: being struck by lightning at some point before you began losing your faculties, or an indefinitely long period of decline, during which you would gradually become unable to perform the simple actions of life and participate meaningfully in conversation or decision-making?”
More options: How about choosing the moment on the fly, based on your condition and prognosis in real time? Or pre-specifying the objective medical criteria on the basis of which you would like it to be decided when the euthanasia should be done (while you’re asleep)? (But wouldn’t many people prefer to be able to say goodbye?)
DD: “We could arrange to have a human body switch itself off quite abruptly and painlessly at a time to be determined. ”
Why apoptosis? Nocturnal barbiturate administration would do the trick, if the criteria were objective and reliably (and verifiably) followed. (Apoptosis just adds a needless further layer of sci-fi on the problem, which is merely to determine when the euthanasia should take place. Surely it’s better to make that decision an objective criterion-based one rather than simply an a-priori time-based one?)
DD: “Almost nobody would want to know to a near certainty the exact day and hour of their death, and the reasons why are made vivid in any number of death-row dramas. ”
Are death-row inmates (whether guilty or innocent) representative of the rest of humanity? Surely there are many people and reasons for wanting to know when. And even if one does not know, the question is whether the cut-off should be actuarial clock-triggered or substantive criterion-triggered. (Determining the right criterion – or, for that matter, the right chronometry – are another matter, and that’s probably where the real substantive issues reside.)
DD: “We install in every human being and in every subsequent human embryo a system that ensures the swift, painless death at some randomly determined time between the age of 85 and 90… ”
Why between 85 and 90, or between any t1 and t2? Is the idea that the interval is an absolute, universal one, that fits all of humankind? If not, then surely it is what other factors (e.g., health, performance capacity, desire to stay alive…) determine the individuals’ time-window that matter far more than keeping the moment within the time-window unpredictable.
DD: “How do we balance the increase of suffering against the non-suffering lives of a few?”
By basing the euthanasia point on individual, objective criteria, not a-priori timing.
DD: “If you would prefer to die by lightning bolt while you are still effective and healthy, the price you must be willing to pay is foregoing some years or months that would have been just as effective and healthy as your last days.”
There’s decline and there’s decline. Some people would put up with some bodily deterioration as long as they remained mentally sharp. None of these things is predictable, for an individual, from a-priori timing alone. That’s just population statistics, and if we’re to be treated according to those, then we may as well not see doctors when we are ill: just type in our age and symptoms, or perhaps just our age (so we can be treated automatically for its most common illness)!
DD: “…just because we could arrange to live to be 100 (or 120!) we really have no right to use up so much more than our fair share of the world’s resources and amenities.”
If we are to reason along those lines, it’s not just our right to live out our years that must be subordinated to the rest of the planet’s needs, but what we have a right to whilst we’re alive (and others are wanting). There’s much to be said for (and against) thinking along these general lines, but it has another name than euthanasia or apoptosis. And the management of how long people are entitled to live will be far less consequential than the management of other entitlements (such as wealth, property, reproduction rights, and perhaps even how we spend our days and use our capacities).
DD: “One of the most interesting objections I have provoked in recent discussions is the suggestion that this policy, if adopted, would rob us of precious opportunities to prove our strength by enduring suffering.”
That objection conflates the question of euthanasia itself with pre-timed pop-off. And it is an example of one of the most sordid and sociopathic justifications for withholding euthanasia (reminiscent of an equally noxious credally based one): Let them suffer for the good of their souls (and mine).
Well, fine, in the cases where “their” and “mine” are co-referential. (In other words, where I’m the one who decides I’d rather stick around and suffer.) But that’s the luxury problem, while there are so many who would rather not stay around and suffer, but are not allowed or able to do anything about it.
DD: “…we could use technology to fine-tune the system, to monitor various plausible measures of quality of life in both individuals and populations, so that apoptosis could more optimally track actual mean rates of decline or even rates of decline in individuals so that apoptosis could be customized in any of a dozen ways.”
Better still, once we’ve figured out a better way of “customizing” the hour, forget about the apoptosis and just use nocturnally administered barbiturates…
DD: “We should pause to take seriously — very seriously — the prospect of protecting some aspects of our lives and deaths from management, and thereby reframing our landscape of decisions.”
And actuarially pre-planned apoptotic obsolescence is a protection from management?
DD: “Why should we devote so much of our R&D budget to finding ways of extending life?”
That’s an entirely different matter, completely independent of pre-planned obsolescence.
DD: “…the prospect of being able to live out your remaining days relatively confident that your survivors will not have to set aside memories of a pathetic decline in order to get to the memories of you that matter. What would you trade for that? I’d trade any number of years over 85…(I am 65 as I write this). ”
Any updates on this view, now that another half-decade has gone by? The criteria for such decisions are of course personal matters, but I, for one, think the world would be far, far better off with Dan Dennetts staying around as long as they are compos mentis, than by doing them at an appointed age so as to stretch strained old-age pensions one epsilon further. If we’re going to contemplate sci-fi fantasies, looking for a way to engineer apoptosis for pre-programmed death seems to me far less to the point than looking for a way to convince people to limit reproduction, become vegans, and convert to a sustainable way of living.
But Dan’s essay can also be taken to be addressing a far more important and urgent matter than pre-programmed pop-off, namely, euthanasia itself. The worst thing about the status quo on death now is the fact that most people cannot choose to die, even when they wish to. Surely before we can have consensus on pre-programmed pop-off for all (whether or not they want it) we must first agree to allow those who do want to die, now, to do so. Yes, there are complications and risks of abuse that need to be taken carefully into account, but the current status quo is cruel, unjust, and irrational.
SUMMARY
Pill-Popping vs. Apoptosis: I think that neither (1) one uniform pre-selected cut-off interval for the life of all human beings nor (2) a preference for being taken by surprise within that interval (“Unexpected-Hanging-Paradox“-style) is for everyone. Or even for most or many — but this could only be settled by a survey (or perhaps not even that, since people don’t always do what they claim they would do…)
Euthanasia itself, however, should (with due precautions against thought disorder and abuse) be available to those who wish it.
So the main point of disagreement is the basis for selecting the time-window for terminating a life. Once that interval is settled, then, if you don’t want to know exactly when the grim one will reap, you can start taking randomized, pre-coded pills before going to sleep (5 years’ worth, daily, if you like), all of them sugar except the one fateful (double-blind-coded) barbiturate.
The second point of disagreement is the no-back-out condition. I think that’s rather harsh, arbitrary, and non-optimal. So I don’t mind that the mortal can decline to take the pills altogether if he changes his mind. The rest is the argument against pre-determining the time-window actuarially for the entire population rather than basing it on individual criteria and wishes.
Compassion and Complacency, Sympathy and Sociopathy