The Moral Imperative for Longevity Science, as Seen From the Social Justice Point of View

The concepts and ideology relating to egalitarianism and social justice are associated with advocates and a community largely hostile to engineered human longevity. To the lay egalitarian extending healthy life looks like more inequality in the making, so they oppose longevity science for the same reasons they oppose every new idea that they believe might benefit the wealthy first of all: death for everyone before inequality for anyone is, depressingly, pretty much exactly where they stand. You can see manifestations of this line of thought in resource allocations and rationing forced on some regions by centralized planning in medicine - such as the "fair innings" argument in the UK, used to justify moving resources away from medical provision to the old.

To be clear, in that sort of situation it is the centrally planned, command and control Soviet-style institutions of clinical medicine that are the problems - rationing and fierce arguments over who should feed from the trough are only symptoms. These are outgrowths of the other line item that walks hand in hand with egalitarianism: the urge to power. Egalitarian ideals cannot be enacted without the power to force people to do what they would not otherwise have done: along this road lies socialism, fascism, communism. Any flavor of authoritarianism in medicine, as in all other human endeavors, inevitably destroys in the incentives for progress, good service, and quality that exist in a market. It doesn't matter how good the original intentions were, the end result is never in doubt; only how long it takes to destroy the wealth and progress that previously existed.

In any case, opposition to human life extension based on an assumption that it will create greater inequality is not uncommon. Egalitarians age, suffer, and die just like the rest of us, however, and we are now entering an era in which the research community might develop biotechnologies to reverse aging. Egalitarians thus have a strong incentive to either selectively abandon their convictions or find a way to advocate for work on rejuvenation biotechnology within their philosophies. As a topic, this has cropped up a number of times in the past here at Fight Aging!. See, for example:

Here are more thoughts on the moral imperative to develop ways to defeat aging and age-related suffering, as seen from the egalitarian viewpoint of imposed obligations and duties. The use of aging as a term here is somewhat loose, but the point that is being made should be clear nonetheless:

The Duty to Extend the "Biological Warranty Period" (Part 1)






The Duty to Extend the "Biological Warranty Period" (Part 2)



In the real world, unfortunately, the widespread adoption of ideas relating to egalitarianism, positive rights, and enforced obligation tends to lead to bad end points, such as the former Soviet Union or the current state of medical regulation in Europe and the US - where it is illegal to try to produce a commercial therapy for aging, for example.

We humans are sadly somewhat hardwired to approve of enforcement of egalitarian ideals, through threat and violence if necessary. This evolved instinct for equality stands in opposition to the incentives and freedom required for rapid generation of wealth and technological progress throughout a society - if you can't keep the rewards of your labor, why work harder? If any reward due to success in a risky endeavor (such as medical research and clinical development) is partially confiscated for redistribution, there will be fewer groups willing to undertake that risk. And so forth.

It is worth noting that the incentives of individuals involved in these examples were all for better services, faster progress towards new medical technologies, and higher quality products - and yet in the name of equality and fairness they collaborated to create a system that harms these goals or makes them impossible. That should stand as a grim warning to those of us who would like to think that rejuvenation biotechnology is enough of a grail to overcome these tendencies toward destruction, stasis, and poverty.


