The Argument Essay: The Consequences Of Life Extension Technology

The human being has always caressed the dream of being immortal. This constant quest has caused the creation of multiple legends concerning the secret of eternal life. Some of them, such as the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life went on to be more popular. In addition to that, multiple religions also have immortality as a central part of their belief system. After years of research focused on the matter, we have reached a point where recent discoveries allow us to look past that dream and see a real possibility of extending our life span. Therefore, researchers have been trying to anticipate the consequences that the advent of such technology could bring upon us as a society. They generally have two points of disagreement concerning life extension technology. Researchers debate on whether or not life extension technology is ethically and morally acceptable. The second point concerns the future consequences this technology could have on social equilibrium. Social equilibrium can be defined here as the balance existing between …show more content…
Many researchers have argued about ethical and moral issues involved in extending our life span. While these authors all agree that human life extension is wrong, they each have different reasons for arguing so. Pijnenburg and Leget for example focused on justifying their opinion while taking different religious and traditional beliefs as arguments. As they stated, " life extension as an explicit aim is contrary to the wisdom of ages as contained in various religious and non-religious spiritual traditions" (Pijnenburg and Leget 586). Furthermore, they feel like the notion of eternal life should be reached through an eternal soul instead of an eternal body. As they say," Immortality is not attained on earth" (Pijnenburg and Leget