Longer Lives?: Understanding the Human Life Extension Possibilities

Abstract

Over the last few years, ethical and social issues related to life extension have gathered much attention among biologists, medical doctors and philosophers. However, despite the general agreement on the importance of life extension both for biogerontology and philosophy of medicine, a satisfactory definition of life extension has not been provided yet. In order to mediate with all the knowledge, in this paper I will present a conceptual model of human life extension: (1) to offer a general definition and some biomedical aspects; (2) to present the origin of the ethical mistake; (3) to introduce two levels: moderate human life extension and radical life extension (4) to comment successful aging idea.