Book contents
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2022
Summary
Ethics is home to numerous subfields such as procreative ethics, environmental ethics, and ‘genethics’. By contrast, there is far less work on ageing and ethics, and there is at present no subfield explicitly devoted to ethical issues related to ageing. This is surprising given that ageing is a fundamental aspect of life; perhaps even more fundamental and ubiquitous than procreation. Moreover, significant ethical questions confront us as ageing persons: How do 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 how ought societies to respond to issues of social justice and the good, balancing the interests of generations and age cohorts? The practical and theoretical importance of these questions, and their inextricable relation to the ageing process, makes it curious that there are few other volumes specifically dedicated to what might be called ageing ethics, or the ethics of ageing.
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- The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing , pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022