From: T0Morrow@aol.com
Date: Thu Jul 11 2002 - 08:18:19 MDT
Reflecting on cryonics recent return to the news leads me to two observations
about the interplay of consent and suspension. Please critique as you see
fit.
1) Consent to revive. An excellent response to the claim, heard most notably
and recently in the Moreno's arguments with More, that no one will want to
revive suspended patients: "Think of someone you love--a parent or child,
for instance--dying. Would you want to have that loved one back? Do you
feel so unloved that you cannot imagine anyone feeling likewise about you?
Well, all it takes to want to bring someone back from suspension is a chain
of loving relations. Your kids want to bring you back, you want to bring an
old friend back, and so on."
In addition to invoking truth, that argument paints a very appealing
emotional picture of cryonicists' motives. It'll take high-tech, sure--but
we also count on love to bring us back.
2) Consent to suspend. Suppose a patient has neither expressly consented to
suspension nor expressly objected to it. Does hypothetical consent justify
suspending that patient?
Argument pro: Any reasonable person would consent to a life-saving
process--even if one a bit more cutting-edge than CPR--that stands to give
them another shot at life. If upon revival they don't like it, well, they
can again opt for death.
Argument con: Hypothetical consent relies on a judgement of what a
reasonable person would agree to. Most reasonable people, even in the most
advanced of today's societies, would not agree to suspension. Their acts
reveal as much. They would have good reasons for that view, too, as they
might well object to the process on grounds that it will waste resources
better spent on the living, that it will give false hope to their loved ones,
and so forth.
I'm on the fence between those two arguments, and so welcome comments.
T.0. Morrow
http://members.aol.com/t0morrow/T0Mpage.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:20 MST