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The Aging Self and the Aging Society Ethical issues involving the elderly have recently come to the fore. This should come as no surprise: Since the turn of the century, there has been an eightfold in crease in the number of Americans over the age of sixty five, and almost a tripling of their proportion to the general population. Those over the age of eighty-five- the fastest growing group in the country-are twenty one more times as numerous as in 1900. Demographers expect this trend to accelerate into the twenty-first century. The aging of society casts into vivid relief a num ber of deep and troubling questions. On the one hand, as individuals, we grapple with the immediate experience of aging and mortality and seek to find in it philosophical or ethical significance. We also wonder what responsi bilities we bear toward aging family members and what expectations of others our plans for old age can reasona bly include. On the other hand, as a community, we must decide: What special role, if any, do older persons occupy in our society? What constitutes a just distribution of medical resources between generations? And, How can institutions that serve the old foster imperiled values, such as autonomy, self-respect, and dignity? Only recently have we begun to explore these themes, yet already a rich and fruitful literature has grown up around them.
List of contents
The Aging Individual.- The Meaning of Life.- The Meaning of Life in Old Age.- Oedipus and the Meaning of Aging: Personal Reflections and Historical Perspectives.- Recovering the Body in Aging.- Aging and Filial Responsibility.- The Aging Society as a Context for Family Life.- What Do Grown Children Owe Their Parents?.- Families as Caregivers: The Limits of Morality.- Health Care and Decision Making.- Rethinking Family Loyalties.- The Role of Intimate Others in Medical Decision Making.- Distributive Justice in an Aging Society.- Limiting Health Care for the Old.- A Lifespan Approach to Health Care.- Old Age and the Rationing of Scarce Health Care Resources.- Appeals to Nature in Theories of Age-Group Justice.- Paying the Real Costs of Lifesaving.- Intent and Actuality: Sacrificing the Old and Other Health Care Goals.- Philosophical Reflections on Aging and Death.- Resentment and the Rights of the Elderly.- Ancient Myth and Modern Medicine: Lessons from Baucis and Philemon.- The Meaning of Temporality in Old Age.- The Absurd.
Summary
The Aging Self and the Aging Society Ethical issues involving the elderly have recently come to the fore. The aging of society casts into vivid relief a num ber of deep and troubling questions. We also wonder what responsi bilities we bear toward aging family members and what expectations of others our plans for old age can reasona bly include.
Report
A sound collection, including both classic and new work. It poses an excellent challenge to those setting out to rethink old age.-Ethics
