The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing

The first volume of new work dedicated specifically to ageing ethics – wide-ranging, clear, and accessible.

C. S. Wareham (Edited by)

9781108817042, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 August 2022

380 pages
24.5 x 17 x 1.5 cm, 0.5 kg

We're all getting older from the moment we're born. Ageing is a fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of life. Yet in ethics, not much work is done on the questions surrounding ageing: how do diachronic features of ageing and the lifespan contribute to the overall value of life? How do time, change, and mortality impact on questions of morality and the good life? And how ought societies to respond to issues of social justice and the good, balancing the interests of generations and age cohorts? In this Cambridge Handbook, the first book-length attempt to stake this terrain, leading moral philosophers from a range of sub-fields and regions set out their approaches to the conceptual and ethical understanding of ageing. The volume makes an important contribution to significant debates about the implications of ageing for individual well-being, social policy and social justice.

Part I. Ageing and the Good Life: 1. Old age and the preference for the future Jeff McMahan
2. Ageing and the temporality of the good life Mark Schweda
3. Children's prudential value Anthony Skelton
4. The ethics of ageing in Frank Perry's The Swimmer Christopher Hamilton
5. Is ageing good? Christine Overall
6. Mental health in old age Simon Keller
7. In defense of a semi-stoical attitude about ageing and death David De Grazia
Part II. Ageing and Morality: 8. Personhood across the lifespan Søren Holm
9. African and East Asian perspectives on ageing Thaddeus Metz
10. Special obligations in long-standing friendships Diane Jeske
11. Forgiveness and ageing Geoffrey Scarre
12. Life-extending treatments for people with dementia Nancy S. Jecker
13. 'Half in love with easeful death': Rational suicide and the elderly L. W. Sumner
Part III. Ageing and Society: 14. 'To Grandmother's house we go': On Women, Ethics, and ageing Samantha Brennan
15. Ageing, Unequal longevities and intergenerational justice Axel Gosseries
16. Ageing, Justice, and Work: Alternatives to mandatory retirement Daniel Halliday and Tom Parr
17. Age and well-being: Ethical implications of the U-curve of happiness Christopher S. Wareham
18. The desirability and morality of life extension John K. Davis.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Ethical issues & debates [JFM], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Western philosophy, from c 1900 - [HPCF], History of Western philosophy [HPC]