In The Price of Immortality, journalist Peter Ward recounts that Neal Van De Ree, the officiator of the Church of Perpetual Life, told him that he is “going to live for five hundred, one thousand, ten thousand years.” Ward then goes on to ridicule Van De Ree and many other immortalists for their hopes of radical life extension. Bioethicists have long made arguments against these prospects, but perhaps the most bizarre of them is the one that claims that a miserable aging process is a necessary psychological preparation for death.

Aging is a little taste of death

Van De Ree’s optimism surrounding immortality is open to criticism. Industrial society has allowed for a sudden increase of life expectancy over the past two centuries, which can influence such optimism. However, this is mostly due to reduction in infant mortality. Skeptics of immortality technologies point out that 125 is the likely ceiling for any extension of age.

Compression of morbidity is on much firmer ground than the vague hope of immortality. Even if the ceiling for dying age may be firmly set, there is still the possibility of reducing the length of time people remain ill or disabled, so as to maximize the healthy lifespan. As James Fries explains, “the compression of morbidity occurs if the age at first appearance of aging manifestations and chronic disease symptoms can increase more rapidly than life expectancy.”

The argument can be traced back to sixteenth century philosopher Michel de Montaigne, who wrote the essay, “That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die.” Montaigne expressed these thoughts: “I notice that in proportion as I sink into sickness, I naturally enter into a certain disdain for life… Inasmuch as I no longer cling so hard to the good things of life when I begin to lose the use and pleasure of them, I come to view death with much less frightened eyes…When we are led by Nature’s hand down a gentle and virtually imperceptible slope, bit by bit, one step at a time, she rolls us in to this wretched state and makes us familiar with it… the leap is not so cruel from a painful life as from a sweet and flourishing life to a grievous and painful one.”

These philosophical musings have been picked up by contemporary bioethicists who have formulated a similar argument. In his influential Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, Leon Kass sensibly asks, “who would not want to avoid senility, crippling arthritis, the need for hearing aids and dentures, and the degrading dependencies of old age?” But then, he goes on to complicate his argument by saying that such degenerations make us more inclined to view death as a much better alternative.  Theologian Gilbert Meilaender makes a similar case in his book, Should We Live Forever?: “the decline that aging involves is, in a way, a gradual and (at the least sometimes) gentle preparation for the cliff toward which we move. To Kass and Meilaender, the lack of suffering in old age increases the fear and loathing of death.”

Such an argument is paradoxical and damaging

Is this a good argument? I posit that it is not. This line of thinking appeals to the sorites concept in philosophy, in which it is hard to establish with any precision when a particular reality begins. Sorites appeals to “little-by-little” arguments built around vague terms. In the case of age and dying, bioethicists presume that somehow death is more bearable if “little by little” decay is introduced in the form of aging. But a closer inspection reveals that this “little-by-little” sorites approach can be absurd in many situations. As with the sorites paradox, it is impossible to confirm where the “little-by-little” approach begins or ends in the case of aging. 

Death is sometimes jokingly compared to taxes; the “little-by-little” tax approach can demonstrate just how difficult such an approach to death can be. Julian Baggini considers the case of a politician who wants to impose a 3% increase in taxation. The politician proposes to do so by a 0.01% increase each day, so that after 300 days, the tax is fully collected. Baggini correctly points out that “no one would be fooled that 300 tiny tax rises don’t add up to a major hike.” Psychologically, “little-by-little” procedures do not always work. As per Baggini’s passage quoted above, that comparison is fitting to death. In both cases, the “little by little” approach is not likely to convince a person the outcome will be beneficial or painless. 

Consider a patient who is about to undergo surgery. Obviously, the recovery phase will bring some pain. As per Montaigne’s logic, in the month prior to the surgery, the patient should be exposed to increasing sensations of pain, so that when the post-surgery kicks in, the patient will be used to it. Therefore, in addition to suffering in the post-surgical period, the patient should also suffer in the pre-surgical period. Presumably, the intensity of pain would increase as the date of the surgery approaches.

This proposal is outrageous. It is eerily masochist and even anti-humanist. Ingemar Patrick Linden reasonably asks, “is this not akin to arguing that one of the good things about getting diabetes and necrotic limbs is that it makes it easier to accept having one’s limbs amputated?” Indeed, Montaigne’s argument is akin to the naïve Panglossian approach that sees purpose in everything (including obviously bad things). 

Suffering should not be the goal

Aging and death are bad things. Aging implies suffering, to the extent that it decreases many mental and bodily capabilities and makes life less enjoyable. Death is also bad, because as philosopher Thomas Nagel famously argued, it deprives us of many things. By any meaningful ethical standard, we ought to reduce bad things. Yet, bioethicists such as Kass bizarrely urge us not to reduce bad things, under the dubious psychological excuse that allowing the badness of aging will somehow make the prospect of death more tolerable.

Kass believes that somehow the death of a 90-year-old person is less sad if she is decrepit rather than in a vigorous state. I counter that the death of the vigorous 90-year-old person is less sad, because although her life came to an end, at least she was able to enjoy life fully.

When Montaigne wrote his famous essay, there was very little medicine could do about aging. Perhaps he simply engaged in cognitive dissonance, as in Aesop’s tale of the fox and the grapes, and argued that since nobody could reverse aging we might as well be happy with it. That was in the sixteenth century, and it was understandable. But in the twenty-first century, we do have the (at least theoretical) possibility of reversing aging, and we do not need to reason along the lines of Montaigne’s cognitive dissonance. Opposing anti-aging efforts on the basis of dubious ethical reasons is immoral by and of itself.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.