Dan Dennett [DD] thinks (now) that there would be more peace of mind in one’s last years (or maybe in one’s earlier ones too) if everyone were signed up ab ovo for a no-opt-out 80-85 apoptosis policy.
When I was in my sophomoric teens, I contemplated having a vasectomy, “It is selfish and wrong for people to reproduce — to create, out of nothing, a potential for suffering, with the patient being someone other than themselves. (No potential for pleasure can compensate for this.)”
Friends said: Are you sure? What if, when you get older, you start to feel broody. You may rue this decision. It’s irreversible. You can’t opt out afterwards.
My (sophomoric) reply: “If I change my mind later on, it serves me right. What I think and feel now is right. If I feel otherwise at a later date, then I’ll be wrong, then. I disavow my later avatar.”
But I never got ’round to having that vasectomy. And I did reach the broody age, when I was glad I had not, and declared my prior callow incarnation to have been the one that was wrong.
But I never got ’round to breeding either. (And now I’ve reached an age where I think I was right the first time.)
All by way of an analogy with Dan’s stance. What about freedom? And variations and variability in the life cycle? Is humankind to be pre-inscribed in a genetically engineered, no-opt-out 80-85 apoptosis policy? Without consultation? After a plebiscite? Does everyone feel that’s right for them?
Will Dan feel that way in the hale, compos mentis and creative ’90s that I fervently wish upon him?
If Chris Hitchens had remained alive, compos mentis and creative till his ’90s, would he not have opted to keep struggling to live, think and write till the very last moment, as he did, mortally ill in his ’60s?
§ § CODA § §
DD: “Stevan’s response is all very sensible and heartfelt but he never gets around to addressing the question of whether his vision of freedom could actually be counterproductive. All the people vegetating away in nursing homes probably share (or shared, when they were compos mentis) his vision of unshackled freedom. Odysseus showed us that if there are some things, some adventures, you want to have, you have to tie yourself to the mast so that you can avoid the negative after-effects of getting what you want.”
I might be willing to pin myself to a biometric mast, but not to a chronometric one!
DD: “A question for those who just don’t see the point I’m trying to make: suppose today you got a credible offer of a two hundred year lifespan by taking a purple pill (and it’s free, if that matters). You have to take the pill now, and you don’t get any guarantees at all about what sort of life you’ll be living after, say, your 90th birthday. Do you take the pill? Think of how knowing something about your longevity will probably distort the rest of your life if you take the pill. Is it obvious that you should opt for the pill?“
Yes, it’s obvious, dead obvious. (And opt for euthanasia — elective or biometric — if ever you opt to opt out.)