For me, as a Métis woman, I see the earth, and it animals, and trees etc. as equal to human life. Considering that, I think of this research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8728480/ around old ancient forests' value, which increases, not diminishes over time. The comparator for young children would be springtime and the regenerative process, so no way to diminish that either. Thank you for your work.
We haven’t said anything about the causes of death. One of the causes might be insufficient resources to keep everyone alive. This issue arose during the Covid pandemic with limited amounts of vaccine available in the early days. It might be argued that it was morally wrong for wealthy countries to use vaccines for children who are at very low risk from Covid at the expense of older people in other countries who died because of lack of vaccine.
I’m rather surprised/disappointed that the surveyed bioethicists appear to have answered the question solely from the perspective of the individual, ignoring the reality of relational autonomy. When taking a relational perspective, both utilitarian and virtue arguments can be made:
Utilitarian: the worst age to die would typically be when a young family was highly dependent on you, i.e. typically in one’s 30s. Alternatively, if you held a unique position with many people dependent on you, that might also be the worst time to die no matter what your age. In other words, the worst age is determined by when your responsibilities to others are at a maximum.
Virtue: the acme of virtue is human flourishing, a state it is difficult to achieve without the wisdom and warm relationships that come from years of virtuous life. Intuitively I feel that the worst age to die would be when you had achieved or were close to flourishing -- probably in your 50s or 60s. Not only would it be a great loss to you, it would deprive all your friends and relations of the example and wisdom you are providing.
The most common normative theory among the respondents is care ethics, so my read is that they are taking the relational perspective by saying that preventing death is equally important regardless of age, since our duty to care (or the virtue of caring) applies regardless. It would be great to do a deeper dive on a later survey to see what people had in mind.
Interesting...
For me, as a Métis woman, I see the earth, and it animals, and trees etc. as equal to human life. Considering that, I think of this research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8728480/ around old ancient forests' value, which increases, not diminishes over time. The comparator for young children would be springtime and the regenerative process, so no way to diminish that either. Thank you for your work.
Thanks for reading!
We haven’t said anything about the causes of death. One of the causes might be insufficient resources to keep everyone alive. This issue arose during the Covid pandemic with limited amounts of vaccine available in the early days. It might be argued that it was morally wrong for wealthy countries to use vaccines for children who are at very low risk from Covid at the expense of older people in other countries who died because of lack of vaccine.
I’m rather surprised/disappointed that the surveyed bioethicists appear to have answered the question solely from the perspective of the individual, ignoring the reality of relational autonomy. When taking a relational perspective, both utilitarian and virtue arguments can be made:
Utilitarian: the worst age to die would typically be when a young family was highly dependent on you, i.e. typically in one’s 30s. Alternatively, if you held a unique position with many people dependent on you, that might also be the worst time to die no matter what your age. In other words, the worst age is determined by when your responsibilities to others are at a maximum.
Virtue: the acme of virtue is human flourishing, a state it is difficult to achieve without the wisdom and warm relationships that come from years of virtuous life. Intuitively I feel that the worst age to die would be when you had achieved or were close to flourishing -- probably in your 50s or 60s. Not only would it be a great loss to you, it would deprive all your friends and relations of the example and wisdom you are providing.
The most common normative theory among the respondents is care ethics, so my read is that they are taking the relational perspective by saying that preventing death is equally important regardless of age, since our duty to care (or the virtue of caring) applies regardless. It would be great to do a deeper dive on a later survey to see what people had in mind.