The partiality we display, in so far as we form and sustain personal attachments, is not normatively fundamental. It is a by-product of the deference and responsiveness that are essential to our engagement with the world. We cannot form and sustain valuable personal relationships without seeing ourselves as answerable to the other participants in those relationships. And we cannot develop and sustain valuable projects without responding to the constraints imposed on our activities by the nature and requirements of those projects (...) themselves. More generally, we cannot engage with the world without responding differentially—or displaying partiality—with respect to the objects of our engagement. Partiality is thus a by-product of engagement. We cannot engage with the world at all without exhibiting forms of partiality. (shrink)

Drawing on Ezekiel Emanuel’s controversial piece ‘Why I hope to die at 75,’ I distinguish two types of concern in ethical debates about extending the human lifespan. The first focusses on the value of living longer from prudential and social perspectives. The second type of concern, which has received less attention, focusses on the value of aiming for longer life. This distinction, which is overlooked in the ethical literature on life extension, is significant because there are features of human psychology (...) and the structure of a life that should give pause when considering how long one should aim to live, but which do not neatly coincide with considerations about how valuable additional life is likely to be. I argue that, while Emanuel’s case for hoping to die at 75 is unconvincing, he nonetheless provides weak pro tanto considerations in favour of taking a moderate life span as a prudential aim around which to base at least some significant life plans. (shrink)