Is Immortality Unethical?

V

valich

Registered Senior Member
"When you save a life, you are simply postponing death to another point. Thus, we are committed to extending life indefinitely if we can, for the same reasons that we are committed to life-saving," says John Harris, a bioethicist at the University of Manchester, England. "Only the rich could afford it anyway."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12935305/from/RS.3/
 
When you save a life, you save the experience of being alive. The most important thing there is, imo.
 
People need to realize that death will happen. It seems unreasonable (when you put feelings aside) to keep someone on life support knowing full well they are probably just going to die that way anyway. People can spend so much time worrying about other people staying alive that they are not out living themselves.

And this war on killing viruses and such is doing nothing but to harm us in the long haul... at some point we will have created super-viruses that have become immune to any known treatment... then what are we to do? I think nature was doing a good job until we tried fighting it. This is one reason why I do not take medicine... I just say "tough" to myself. I do not know if they correlate or not, but I very rarely get sick. I think the last time I was sick was somewhere around 5-8 years ago. Not a cold, flu, anything.

Fight AIDs, great. Most people shouldn't have it in the first place. I know an unborn child cannot help it, but somewhere down the line there is someone to blame.

Maybe I got a little off track. :cool:
 
Yes. If you die, you are a bad person, and you deserve the death penalty. To die is to commit a moral transgression which is punishable by death. A person who dies is just like a rock that sinks, evil. Pumice stones are the only righteous upstanding stones, because they were formed as molten rock fell to the ground after a volcano erupted and they cooled a lot faster with a lot of gas inside, so they float, and dont sin. Therefore, if you die, or sink, you are evil. So we should all start giving birth in volcanoes, hoping are progeny will learn from the holy pumice stones and live forever...floating.
 
It helps to know how the person feels whose life you are trying to decide about. That's why it's so important that we all have living wills. If your wife or your children are there to tell the doctor what your wishes were, that might be okay, but it will be easier for everybody if he has a signed document from you spelling it out.

If people are selfish and insist that their lives be prolonged by heroic measures even if for all practical purposes the chance of them waking up is zero, well then we've got a problem. But it's not a very common one. Most people really don't want A. To be a pointless burden, B . To deny closure to their friends and loved ones, and C. To have their body lying there in such an undignified manner and embarrass what's left of them.

Viruses, well you have to take a long term view. Much of trying to save lives now ends up being research into how to prolong life in the future. We've learned a lot about viruses by studying AIDS and HIV. It will probably contribute to conquering the viruses that cause the various syndromes we lump together under the name "cancer."

What we call "modern medicine" has doubled the average human life expectancy (in countries that have modern medicine anyway) in scarcely more than a century. If it does that again in the next century, most people will think that's pretty nice. Especially the people at the bottom end of the curve who will live to be thirty or forty instead of fifteen or twenty.
 
Immortality in the form of human bodies as we have traditionally known them is unethical unless we eliminate birth as well, because bodies require finite resources. However, someday I think we will be able to recreate people as computers and live in a virtual reality that can be contained in a small box. Convenient for space travel and easy on the environment.
 
This will be ethical....once we begin to inhabiate other planets thus increasing our resources to compensate for the increased population. And maybe eventualy we will be able to move between universes (or multiverses if you perfer). its along ways away but we can dream!
 
spiritual_spy said:
This will be ethical....once we begin to inhabiate other planets thus increasing our resources to compensate for the increased population. And maybe eventualy we will be able to move between universes (or multiverses if you perfer). its along ways away but we can dream!
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How does that change the morality "laws?" Suppose I argue the planets are not ours to enhabit... and it is immoral to enhabit places that are not ours. Therefore, immoral to inhabit other planets.

Then we break a morality law by inhabiting a planet. Now we are using it for our own good.
 
QuarkMoon said:
How could life ever be unethical?
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No one ever said life was unethical. What we do with life could be. Cloning? Killing? Immortality?
 
Absane said:
No one ever said life was unethical. What we do with life could be. Cloning? Killing? Immortality?
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Immortality is the indefinite continuation of life. So, I ask the question, how could life be unethical?

Are you claiming that people need to die? Why? What is unethical about survival?
 
QuarkMoon said:
Immortality is the indefinite continuation of life. So, I ask the question, how could life be unethical?

Are you claiming that people need to die? Why? What is unethical about survival?
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Well before I go any further... I find morality/ethics just non-existant. I am arguing with the assumption they do exist and there are "laws." I also assume the laws are universal and non-changing... and that they all reduce down to a few simple laws, whatever they might be. So simple and comprehensive they answer all questions with regards to morality/ethics. I do not claim to know them.

I think that if something is meant to continue living, it will do so. Natural selection and evolution have given life to human beings. If we keep fucking around with that, humans will stop evolving. Who knows, maybe we can evolve to live 200 years old?

Yes, I am claiming people need to be able to die. Why? Like I said above, natural selection and evolution.

There is nothing unethical about wanting to survive. But why do we want to survive? Because we are afraid of death. We are afraid of pain.
 
How can life be unethical? It cant. Its life. Thats like asking, "How can a rock be unethical?" Its a rock. You cant ascribe morality to life. Its life. Morality and ethicalness, if thats a word, are things that are ascribed to people, not abstract ideas. Then again, there are the holy pumice stones....
 
Dross said:
How can life be unethical? It cant. Its life. Thats like asking, "How can a rock be unethical?" Its a rock. You cant ascribe morality to life. Its life. Morality and ethicalness, if thats a word, are things that are ascribed to people, not abstract ideas. Then again, there are the holy pumice stones....
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No one is saying life is unethical. You guys keep saying that that it has been said. It is what you do with life that can be unethical. For example, stealing is unethical. However, all that person did was want. Is wanting unethical? Probably not, but it is what this person did with his wanting that is not moral.

(note: I am, using the words ethics and morality like they mean the same... I am sure they do not, but everyone should understand what I mean by them)
 
Absane said:
People need to realize that death will happen.
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You are right. To me personally it wouldn't matter when I die. In fact I don't give a shit about death. If people wanted to kill me, I wouldn't discourage them. Not like my life is worth anything to anyone anyway.
 
immortality itself is not unethical, but it would have effects on the ethics of those that are immortal. if only a few were immortal, they would see themselves as better than mortals, and would not respect the lives of others, and probably treat them like dog urine. if the human population as a whole were immortal, they would loose their respect and awe for life. one of the most common reasons that people act morally is the belief that they will one day die and be judged. not all would loose their morality, but most would.
 
faye616 said:
One of the most common reasons that people act morally is the belief that they will one day die and be judged. not all would loose their morality, but most would.
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Speak for yourself! For those of us who don't buy into fairy tale worlds populated by fantasy beings, a powerful reason to act morally is the belief that we will be judged in the real world by real people. Imagine that you and all of those other people will live forever and five hundred years from now they will have accumulated an impressive list of things to judge you for! The temptation to act morally and win their favor will be even stronger than it is now.

As for disrespecting other creatures because their lives are shorter, I don't know why anyone would act that way. It has always made me very sad that my dogs and cats only live into their teens and just when I get used to them being a fundamental part of my life they die. If anything, I appreciate them more because I have such a short time during which to appreciate them.

I'm not sure how I would feel about having to live for thousands of years with some of the people I've had the misfortune to encounter.
 
Dross said:
Yes. If you die, you are a bad person, and you deserve the death penalty. To die is to commit a moral transgression which is punishable by death. A person who dies is just like a rock that sinks, evil. Pumice stones are the only righteous upstanding stones, because they were formed as molten rock fell to the ground after a volcano erupted and they cooled a lot faster with a lot of gas inside, so they float, and dont sin. Therefore, if you die, or sink, you are evil. So we should all start giving birth in volcanoes, hoping are progeny will learn from the holy pumice stones and live forever...floating.
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Using egalitarian ethics, you deserve to die for promoting such a view. For you to live, to promote other people to die, is for you to commit a gravily evil "moral transgression" and your "transgression is punishable by death." And just like a "rock that sinks - and stinks - that is evil, because you are formed from sin;" therefore "die, or sink, you are evil." So you should jump into a "vocanoe, hoping that your progeny will learn." But you are so incredibly evil that you do not deserve such a chance of remorse. Go to hell you evil immoral bastard! That's where you belong.
 
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