Do We Need Death? The Consequences of Radical Life Extension

Is aging an inevitability or a disease? Is death the ultimate tragedy or necessary to give life meaning? If we could live forever, should we want to? If much longer lives are within technological reach, is it our duty to do everything possible to achieve radical life extension, or is it instead our duty to reconcile ourselves to finitude?

Such big questions require big minds. Aubrey de Grey, the maverick scientist at the forefront of anti-aging research, contributes this month’s lead essay arguing that it is our duty to “fight aging to the death.” Replying to de Grey we’ll have Diana Schaub, professor of political science at Loyola College of Maryland and member of the President’s Council of Bioethics; Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine’s science correspondent and author of Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution; and Daniel Callahan co-founder and Director of the International Program of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute.

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