(&
paid advertising section
The Bazzaar Quality handmade art & goods made exclusively in Sonoma County!
52 Mission Plazza Stee. 123, Saantaa Rosaa 707.537.9454 | bazzaar.rpweb.com
Contemporary/Museum Framing Conceptual Art Gallery
707.473.9600 707.474.9600 www.hammerfriar.com
Contemporary Japanese Prints 707.875.2922
1781 Hwy 1, Bodega Bay www.renbrown.com
Sebastopol Gallery
RIVERFRONT ART GALLERY
150 N. Main St. Sebastopol, CA 707.829.7200 Daily 11-6
132 PETALUMA BLVD. NORTH, DOWNTOWN PETALUMA
sebastopol-gallery.com
707-778-4ART(4278)
WWW.RIVERFRONTARTGALLERY.COM
Greatful Dead Memorabilia 110 North Main St., Sebastopol, CA Around the World pustuff@gmail.com O Locally Made: treehouse 28 clothing 707.829.ROCK (7625) O Artwork, Collectibles & More O Fine Gems & Minerals from
Call Today to Advertise! 707.527.1200 | sales@bohemian.com 32
03.24.10-03.30.10
THE BOHEMIAN
;854 4GC4=B8>=
fears that they would result in a Malthusian hell. As Davis notes, people who choose the treatments would obviously not consider living in an increasingly Malthusian world a fate worse than death, and “therefore they would probably not consider it a fate worse than non-existence for their children either.� And Malthusian hells may be self-limiting. “Will there come a time when the Malthusian conditions reach a level of such crisis that people are better off not extending their lives?� Davis asks. “Perhaps so; if they see it that way, they will stop choosing life extension.� Is there any way to break out of this dismal total utilitarian calculation? Bioethicist Russell Blackford argues yes. In the second new paper, Russell Blackford from Monash University in Australia specifically addresses Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer’s claim that it is immoral to want to live longer, say by doubling one’s life expectancy to 150 years. Why does Singer think this? Singer begins by setting up a thought experiment in which researchers develop a pill that will double life expectancy to 150 years. He assumes that people have an average happiness level of 5 out of a possible 10 during the first 75 years. The life-extension pill maintains its users at about the same level of health and mental acuity as a healthy 60-year-old for the next 75 years, reducing their happiness level to 4 for that period. This yields an average happiness level of 4.5 over the course of their 150-year life spans. Imagine Singer’s pill as a kind of Fountain of Prolonged Middle Age. Singer also assumes population-control measures stabilizing population at replacement levels. Ultimately in the Singer scenario, the total number of people born will be half of what it otherwise would have been during any specific time period without the age-retarding drug. So a long-lived society might constitute 1 billion individuals, and a normal life expectancy society would number 2 billion at any one time. To illustrate Singer’s calculus, Blackford does a little happiness math.The hedonic calculation for long lifers would be 4.5 units of happiness x 150 years of life x 1 billion individuals = 675 billion happiness years. The computation of pleasure for short lifers: 5 units of happiness x 75 years of life x 2 billion = 750 billion happiness years. Singer acknowledges that individual long lifers would have better lives (4.5 hedonic units x 150 years = 675 total units) than individual short lifers (5 hedonic units x 75 year = 375 units). But the total sum of happiness over any specific period of time is higher in the society without the life-extension treatment. So Singer concludes that the moral thing to do is to stop research on life-prolonging drugs. But imposing population-control measures should be morally suspect to someone who advocates maximizing total utility over time. Why? As Blackford points out, Singer’s utility logic leads to the “conclusion that a sufficiently large population with people whose lives are barely worth living would be a better outcome than a much smaller population of people who are very happy.� This is what philosopher Derek Parfit calls the “repugnant conclusion.� Parfit
never believed that he had resolved the paradox at the heart of a total utilitarian calculus that leads to the repugnant conclusion. One consequence of this line of argument is that people should have as many children as possible in order to maximize the total amount of happiness so long as they could eke out some minimal amount of pleasure. In fact, it would be immoral for people to restrict the number of children they bear because they would be reducing the overall amount of possible happiness in the world. To counter the total utility logic, Blackford offers another thought experiment in which a benevolent but not omnipotent deity has the choice between creating a world with 1 billion happy people (6 hedonic units on average out of 10 possible) versus another world with 6 billion fairly miserable inhabitants (1.5 hedonic units on average). Total average happiness on the second miserable planet would exceed that of the first by a ratio of 3 to 2 over time (9 billion units versus 6 billion units in any given year). Singer, if he followed the logic of his argument, would advise the deity to create the second world rather than the first. Blackford counters, “We expect a benevolent god to be concerned about how well lives go, rather than about the sheer number of them.� The upshot of this analysis, according to Blackford, is that “what we value . . . is that whatever actual lives come into existence should go well.� Blackford’s benevolence scenario, like Singer’s original set-up, implies that the maximization of utility under Malthusian conditions will be avoided because population growth will be kept in check. However, Blackford, unlike Singer, is morally consistent, because advocating benevolence does not require maximizing total utility; rather, the goal is to attempt to maximize the utilities of individuals. As Blackford concludes, “Since I see no doubt that the lives in the pro-drug scenario would be better— something that Singer also thinks—then we should develop the drug.� Of course, if one accepts Blackford’s conclusions, the question of how population will be controlled comes to the fore. Will some “benevolent decision-maker� impose something like a replacement fertility requirement in order to make sure that the Methuselahs are not overcrowded, thus enabling their lives to go well? Perhaps such “benevolent decisionmakers� are unnecessary. Turning from philosophy to the empirical, it is noteworthy that the societies with the longest life expectancies are already experiencing below replacement fertility largely without the interference of “benevolent decision-makers.� At one point Davis acknowledges, “Of course, if the Malthusian consequences of total utilitarianism are a reason to reject total utilitarianism, then one can argue that Malthusian consequences are a reason to reject Free Choice.� Blackford implicitly accepts this analysis and rejects Free Choice. In any case, the conclusion from either analysis—Davis’ dismal total utility calculus and Blackford’s benevolence argument—is that pursuing radical life extension is the moral thing to do.