Schloendorn John
1001 S McAllister Ave, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
Bioethics. 2006 Aug;20(4):191-202. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2006.00494.x.
In the close to medium future, the life sciences might permit a vast extension of the human life span. I will argue that this is a very desirable development for the individual person. The question whether death is a harm to the dying is irrelevant here. All it takes is that being alive is good for the living person and not being alive is not good for anyone. Thus, living persons who expect to live on happily are rationally required to want to stay alive. Eventual uncertainty whether it will be possible to be happy in the future provides no objection, but rather an incentive to try. This view, however, may be naive in assuming that persons are unchanging entities that exist separately from their psychological information. Objections have been derived from reductionistic views that value our future experiences in a way that declines with time, so that there will be a future point beyond which only negligible value accrues. If we adopt such a view, then we cannot now be concerned to have experiences beyond that point. I argue that these arguments fail to take into account all the reasons we might have to be concerned for the future and all kinds of such concern that come from them. The adoption of a plausible reductionistic account can arguably weaken our concern for the future and certainly change its quality in important ways. But this provides no objection to the desire to live forever, nor to live at all.
在不远的将来，生命科学可能会大幅延长人类的寿命。我认为这对个人来说是非常可取的发展。在这里，死亡是否对濒死者构成伤害的问题无关紧要。关键在于活着对活人有益，而死亡对任何人都没有好处。因此，那些期望幸福地继续生活的活人理性上必然希望活下去。未来是否有可能幸福存在不确定性，但这并非反对理由，反而会成为努力的动力。然而，这种观点可能过于天真，它假定人是与心理信息相分离的不变实体。有人从还原论观点提出反对意见，认为我们对未来经历的重视程度会随时间下降，以至于未来会有一个点，超过这个点后获得的价值微不足道。如果我们采纳这种观点，那么我们现在就不会关心那个点之后的经历。我认为这些论点没有考虑到我们关心未来的所有理由以及由此产生的各种关心。采纳一个合理的还原论观点可以说会削弱我们对未来的关心，并且肯定会在重要方面改变其性质。但这既不反对永生的愿望，也不反对活着的愿望。
