Not growing old – gracefully

Significant extension of average life expectancy has always required societies to invent new social forms and new expectations of what it means to grow old gracefully. This chapter will discuss the ethical implications of not growing old and especially whether we can elucidate those ethical implications in advance of changes in social forms and expectations. It will be argued that although there is a duty to discharge one’s moral duties in each particular segment of life, the precise contents of that duty cannot be fixed a priori, but must be discovered by the first generations who do not grow old.