Some people are in circumstances so dreadful that they quite rationally don’t want to go on. (My mother is 92 and definitely does not want heroic measures to be taken.) But on a large scale, the answer to that is to not get into such a state—to prolong not merely any sort of existence, but healthy existence. As far as I’m concerned, that’s part and parcel of life extension, and Swift’s Struldbrugs are just another mistaken objection to long life.
Sure, if I don’t want to live because my life is insufficiently healthy, one solution is to keep making me healthier until I change my mind, then extend my life.
More generally, if I don’t want to live because my life lacks some property X (of which health is one example, but not the only one), one solution is to provide me with X and then extend my life. I’m not sure I would consider the general problem of providing people with everything they lack to make life feel worth living to them be part and parcel of life extension, but it’s not clearly wrong to do so.
Some people are in circumstances so dreadful that they quite rationally don’t want to go on. (My mother is 92 and definitely does not want heroic measures to be taken.) But on a large scale, the answer to that is to not get into such a state—to prolong not merely any sort of existence, but healthy existence. As far as I’m concerned, that’s part and parcel of life extension, and Swift’s Struldbrugs are just another mistaken objection to long life.
Sure, if I don’t want to live because my life is insufficiently healthy, one solution is to keep making me healthier until I change my mind, then extend my life.
More generally, if I don’t want to live because my life lacks some property X (of which health is one example, but not the only one), one solution is to provide me with X and then extend my life. I’m not sure I would consider the general problem of providing people with everything they lack to make life feel worth living to them be part and parcel of life extension, but it’s not clearly wrong to do so.