Etikk i praksis. Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics (2015), 9 (1), 87–110
Mixed views about radical life extension
Allen Alvarez1, Lumberto Mendoza2, & Peter Danielson31Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, allen.alvarez@ntnu.no
2Department of Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman, lumberto.mendoza@up.edu.ph
3Centre for Applied Ethics, School of Population & Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, danielsn@exchange.ubc.ca
Abstract: Recent studies on public attitudes toward life extension technologies show a mix of ambivalence toward and support for extending the human lifespan (Partridge 2009; Dragojlovic 2013; Funk et al. 2013). Attitudes toward genetic modification of organisms and technological enhancements may be used to categorize individuals according to political or ideological orientation such as technoprogressive or conservative (Hughes 2010) and it could be easy to assume that these categories are related to more general categorizations related to culture, e.g. between Traditional and Secular-rational values in the World Values Survey (Ingelhart & Welzel 2010). This paper discusses how attitudes toward aspects of radical life extension may be related to cultural values as revealed in an online deliberative survey among university students conducted between January 2012 to January 2013. Survey results suggest that attitudes toward radical life extension tend to be mixed among groups categorized as Traditional, Secular-rational, Survivalist, and Self-expressionist. The study explored the relation between responses of 326 university students to 5 key questions on radical life extension (RLE) and the cultural values they tend to favor as indicated by their response to 20 statements from the World Values Survey.
Design and Method: The survey consisted of 3 stages: an online pre-discussion survey, face-to-face discussion, and post-discussion survey. After completing the 5 main survey questions in stage 1, participants were presented two additional questionnaires: one on cultural attitudes using 20 statements from the 2004-2008 World Values Survey (WVS) and another on health attitudes with 12 statements from Dutta-Bergman’s 2004 study. In stage 2, participants were engaged in a face-to-face discussion in class focusing on their responses to the five key questions. After the discussion, they were invited to reconsider the choices and reasons they posted in stage 1 in the light of the face-to-face class discussion in stage 2.
Results: Responses to the five survey questions showed that there tended to be more individuals across groups who disagreed with adopting technologies that radically extend the human lifespan beyond the current limit of 120 years. Attitudes toward radical life extension did not correspond to cultural attitudes indicated by responses to the WVS questions. The proportion of agreement/disagreement to statements presented in each of the five questions varied across cultural groups and there tended to be more individuals who disagreed with radical life extension in all groups. Changes in responses after the discussion stage were not significant and most respondents maintained their prior views.
Discussion: Cultural attitudes associated with familiar technologies may not correspond with attitudes toward newer technologies since beliefs and values may need to be adapted to new imagined situations that the new technologies elicit. Moral understandings associated with familiar technological habits and beliefs are not necessarily carried over to new technologies.
Keywords: Radical life extension ethics, online deliberative survey, cultural values
Introduction
A number of studies have
explored public attitudes toward life extension
technologies. A telephone interview survey conducted
among 605 members of the Australian public reveals
ambivalence on the issue of extending the human
lifespan (Partridge, Lucke, Bartlett, & Hall,
2009). A recent study conducted in 2012 among the
Canadian public suggests that moderate life
extension of up to 120 years is supported by 59% of
1,231 survey participants (Dragojlovic, 2013). That
recent study also suggests that individuals’ general
orientation towards science and technology may
strongly predict support for radical life extension.
In another recent (2013) study conducted among 2,012
nationally representative cohorts in the United
States by the Pew Research Center, 51% said that
radical life extension (RLE) would be a bad thing
for society while 41% said that it would be a good
thing (Funk et al., 2013). Since the prospect of
extending healthy human lifespan beyond 120 years is
still a very controversial issue, it would be
informative to explore how the cultural values or
attitudes of the public are related to their views
about RLE, i.e. their support for or rejection of
the prospect of radically extending healthy human
lifespan. Our current study explored the relation
between responses of 326 university students to five
key questions on RLE and their cultural attitudes as
indicated by their responses to 20 statements
derived from the World Values Survey.Design and Method
An online deliberative
survey among university students using the
“N-Reasons platform” (Danielson, 2010) was conducted
between January 2012 and January 2013. The aim of
the survey was to explore attitudes to RLE and
compare cultural attitudes with responses to five
main survey questions related to biomedical research
in RLE, means of life extension, effects of RLE on
global population growth, compatibility of deeply
held beliefs with RLE and interest in using RLE in
advanced years. (See Appendix
1 for details of the five main survey
questions). The survey consists of three stages (see
Fig. 1 below). In stage 1, five main survey
questions were asked. Prior to asking each question,
a paragraph (authored by Alvarez) discussing
relevant information on life extension research was
presented with web links to relevant journal
articles. In the invitation page (which was part of
stage 1), web links to two journal articles were
also provided (in particular, a link to the article
by Jim Oeppen and James Vaupel, published in Science
in 2002, arguing that life expectancy continues to
increase; another by Aubrey de Grey, published in
Experimental Gerontology in 2003, criticizing
arguments for rejecting foreseeability and
desirability of anti-aging medicine)1.
In survey question 1, the first sentence about life
expectancy included links to a web article showing
current life expectancy averages around the world
and a New York Times article reporting the death of
the world’s oldest person, Jeanne Calment2. In survey
question 3, web links to two articles were provided,
one3 supporting
the idea that overpopulation could result from using
RLE while another4
showing the opposite. In survey question 4, a
web link was provided to an article citing surveys
around the world indicating that many elderly people
want to be resuscitated.5
After completing the five main survey questions,
participants were then presented two additional
questionnaires: one on cultural attitudes using 20
statements from the World Values Survey (WVS)6 and another on health
attitudes using 12 statements from Dutta-Bergman’s
2004 study (see Appendix
3 for details).In stage 2,
participants (who were members of a university
class) were then engaged in a face-to-face
discussion with their fellow students and
facilitating instructors (Alvarez, Mendoza and
Evangelista)7 focusing
on the five main questions. They were then invited
to take the survey a second time in stage 3 to
reconsider their choices and the reasons they
posted, giving them the opportunity to change
these in the light of the class discussion in
stage 2.
Participant Recruitment
Eleven classes were recruited from four universities in Norway and the Philippines, including two public cohorts with participation by students from Canada and public participants who discovered the survey site on the Web. Our participant recruitment follows what is called a non-probability/accidental or convenience sampling technique. We do not claim that the results are generalizable to the population (or country) from which the participants came. Most of the participants who are members of the 11 classes were asked to participate in all three stages of the survey where two of the authors (Alvarez and Mendoza) and one university professor facilitated the face-to-face discussion stage. The classes that participated in Norway consisted of courses in technology and ethics and corporate social responsibility. Both classes consisted of a mix of students from natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities, including philosophy. The classes from the Philippines consisted of two courses in critical thinking, five introductory courses in philosophy and two courses in science and technology studies (see Table 1). All classes consisted of a mix of students majoring in different study programs from the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities, including philosophy. There were 489 registered participants but only 326 were included in the analysis. One-hundred and sixty-three were excluded due to incomplete responses in the cultural attitudes questionnaire, which is key to addressing one of the main research question on how cultural attitudes relate to views about RLE. We excluded responses that contained inconsistent answers, where participants responded with Agree and Disagree on the same question. This was done using a quantitative analysis software command that automatically excluded those responses.
The classes that had face-to-face discussions in stage 2 were shown a short video (seven minutes) on life extension8 followed by a discussion of the reasons for and against RLE technologies. All classes that had face-to-face discussions were invited to take the survey again in stage 3 to reconsider the choices and reasons they posted.
Members of the public who discovered the survey site on the Internet or were referred to the survey by their contacts were randomly assigned to the listed classes but were marked in the data tables for exclusion. This mechanism of random assignment of public participants to classes is part of the general design of most N-Reasons surveys to enhance anonymity of responses when participants post reasons.
Results
Quantitative
Analysis Aggregated by Question
The aggregated
results of all classes indicate a tendency to disagree
with statements suggesting that RLE be adopted.
Regarding the question on whether RLE is a desirable
goal for biomedical research (see Chart
1), 50% disagreed (including 4% who strongly
disagreed) versus 13% who agreed (11% strongly) and
37% neutral. When asked if they would avail themselves
of RLE in their old age (Chart 1),
56% were neutral and 39% disagreed (26% strongly)
versus 5% who agreed (4% strongly). Seventy-nine
percent disagreed (59% strongly) that RLE is
compatible with their deeply held beliefs.
The overall response to the question related to effects on global population growth (see Chart 2) shows that 83% agreed (including 3% who strongly agreed) that we should be concerned with RLE effects on population growth versus 8% who disagreed (1% strongly) and 9% who were neutral.
Regarding the hypothetical question about which safe and effective method of RLE participants would prefer (see Chart 3), 14% seem to reject any method versus 24% who are willing to use combined natural and artificial methods and an overwhelming 62% who insisted on using only natural means to life extension.
Participants’ cultural
values and their responses to survey
questions
The World Values
Survey (WVS) (Inglehart & Welzel, 2010) has been
used in other studies to classify the different
cultural attitudes of different populations around the
world. Four cultural values are paired in two
dimensions/continuum in the WVS. These paired values
are mapped in such a way that the Traditional versus
Secular-rational values are graphed on the y-axis and
the Survival versus Self-expression values on the
x-axis. The values that respondents of the WVS
tend to favor can then be mapped where the two
dimensions intersect (see WVS wave 5 (2004-2008) in Fig. 2 below). Our survey adopted four cultural categories from the WVS as a proxy to describe cultural attitudes by which our survey participants could be grouped. This was not meant to test generalizable theses similar to those made in the original WVS. The 20 statements from the WVS (see Appendix 2) are presented in the survey to ask which cultural values participants are inclined to favor as indicated by a five-point Likert scale (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree).
As presented in the 20 statements, those who favor Traditional values reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide, and tend to have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook, value religion, parent-child ties, submission to authority and traditional family. Could it be possible that those who have these attitudes would tend to reject RLE as well?
Those who favor Secular-rational
values give less importance to religion,
authority, and traditional family values and tend
to accept divorce, abortion, and euthanasia. Could
it be possible that those who have these attitudes
would tend to approve RLE parallel to their
openness to new ways of doing things?
Those who favor Survival values give importance to economic and physical security, tend to be ethnocentric in outlook, and have low levels of trust and tolerance. It is not obvious what sorts of attitudes towards RLE are related to these values.
Those who favor Self-expression values prioritize protecting the environment, inclined to be involved in policy decisions in economic and political affairs, and give importance to gender equality and being more and more tolerant of foreigners, gays and lesbians. It is also not obvious what sorts of attitudes to RLE are related to these values since the tendency to protect the environment might correspond to rejection of RLE as possibly resource-demanding, while being tolerant to differences may possibly suggest openness to new technologies.
We categorized the responses to the 20 statements and the results showed that 43% of our survey participants favored the combination of Traditional and Survival values, 36% a combination of Traditional and Self-expression values, 19% a combination of Secular-rational and Self-expression values, and only 2% favored a combination of Secular-rational and Survival values. We also grouped the responses separately into the four categories (see Table 2) and observed that in the Traditional and Survival values dimension 78% of all the 326 participants favored Traditional values and only 22% favored Secular-rational values. The same group of participants had 54% who favored Survival values and 46% who favored Self-expression values in the Survival values versus Self-expression dimension.
We created a scatter-plot chart of the cultural values favored by survey participants (see Fig. 3) to illustrate how this would situate their responses on the WVS cultural map. The numbers on each axis correspond to the equivalent score for all the responses to the 20 statements (see Appendix 2).
We tested the relation between the cultural values of participants and their responses to the survey questions. One hypothesis we tested is that the more participants favored traditional and/or survival values the more they would disagree with using RLE, and the more they favored Secular-rational and/or Self-expression values the more they would agree with using RLE. Surprisingly, however, there were those who strongly favored Secular-rational and/or Self-expression values but who also disagreed with adopting RLE technologies. There were those who strongly agreed with Traditional and/or Survival values but also agreed with using RLE. There could be more fine-grained variations in between extremes, of course. To account for such fine-grained variations, we superimposed a slope-like series of shaded areas on the scatter-plot chart to indicate the cultural attitudes versus response to each of the five questions. The series of shaded areas suggests that the more Secular-rational values were preferred, the more biomedical research on RLE would be agreeable (see Fig. 4, for example). The same figure, however, show that this prediction does not necessarily hold true because some of those who selected Traditional values, like those who selected Secular-rational values, also strongly agreed with pursuing biomedical research on RLE. Similar observations were made in all cultural categories for each of the four other questions (see Figs. 5 – 13).
Those who favor Survival values give importance to economic and physical security, tend to be ethnocentric in outlook, and have low levels of trust and tolerance. It is not obvious what sorts of attitudes towards RLE are related to these values.
Those who favor Self-expression values prioritize protecting the environment, inclined to be involved in policy decisions in economic and political affairs, and give importance to gender equality and being more and more tolerant of foreigners, gays and lesbians. It is also not obvious what sorts of attitudes to RLE are related to these values since the tendency to protect the environment might correspond to rejection of RLE as possibly resource-demanding, while being tolerant to differences may possibly suggest openness to new technologies.
We categorized the responses to the 20 statements and the results showed that 43% of our survey participants favored the combination of Traditional and Survival values, 36% a combination of Traditional and Self-expression values, 19% a combination of Secular-rational and Self-expression values, and only 2% favored a combination of Secular-rational and Survival values. We also grouped the responses separately into the four categories (see Table 2) and observed that in the Traditional and Survival values dimension 78% of all the 326 participants favored Traditional values and only 22% favored Secular-rational values. The same group of participants had 54% who favored Survival values and 46% who favored Self-expression values in the Survival values versus Self-expression dimension.
We created a scatter-plot chart of the cultural values favored by survey participants (see Fig. 3) to illustrate how this would situate their responses on the WVS cultural map. The numbers on each axis correspond to the equivalent score for all the responses to the 20 statements (see Appendix 2).
We tested the relation between the cultural values of participants and their responses to the survey questions. One hypothesis we tested is that the more participants favored traditional and/or survival values the more they would disagree with using RLE, and the more they favored Secular-rational and/or Self-expression values the more they would agree with using RLE. Surprisingly, however, there were those who strongly favored Secular-rational and/or Self-expression values but who also disagreed with adopting RLE technologies. There were those who strongly agreed with Traditional and/or Survival values but also agreed with using RLE. There could be more fine-grained variations in between extremes, of course. To account for such fine-grained variations, we superimposed a slope-like series of shaded areas on the scatter-plot chart to indicate the cultural attitudes versus response to each of the five questions. The series of shaded areas suggests that the more Secular-rational values were preferred, the more biomedical research on RLE would be agreeable (see Fig. 4, for example). The same figure, however, show that this prediction does not necessarily hold true because some of those who selected Traditional values, like those who selected Secular-rational values, also strongly agreed with pursuing biomedical research on RLE. Similar observations were made in all cultural categories for each of the four other questions (see Figs. 5 – 13).
