Thursday, January 15, 2004

A Conundrum or Sophistry?

Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, posts, yesterday, at The Volokh Conspiracy, a “Conundrum of the Day." Tyler invites comments in regards to the post, which I oblige here.

The conundrum.

"There is an arbitrariness in defining the relevant class of risky events. In my lifetime as a driver, I stand some (fairly low) chance of killing an innocent pedestrian. Few people would argue that I should be prohibited from driving. Assume, however, that science prolongs (fit) human life forever, at least unless you are struck down by a car. My chance of killing an innocent pedestrian then would approach certainty, given that I plan to continue driving throughout an eternal life. In fact I could be expected to kill very many pedestrians. Should I then be prohibited from driving? When we make a prohibition decision, should we measure the risk of a single act of driving, or the risk of driving throughout a lifetime? Measuring the bundled risk appears to imply absurd consequences, such as banning driving for people with sufficiently long lives.

Alternatively, measuring the risk of only the single act is vulnerable to counterexamples. Imagine an involuntary game of Russian roulette with very many chambers in the gun, played very many times against me. The chance of my death from any single firing is very small, but surely we would prohibit such a game, looking at the high overall risk of the bundle. In this case we consider the bundled risk, but does this mean that we should stop immortals from driving cars?"

Tyler blogs on this subject also at Marginal Revolution under the heading “Would potential immortals be risk-averse?" In that post, Tyler links to this post by Lawrence Solum at Lawrence’s blog Legal Theory Blog.

The basic premise, as I understand it, is, if anti-aging drugs available for general consumption, or advanced medical technology, would, result in immortality, would this change our behavior?  Specifically, in the realm of risk.  Tyler clarifies his query with this statement,

"I asked the different question of whether an immortal is necessarily a murderer with a probability approaching one, given the recurring risk of accidents."

in response to Solum’s post, which was a response to Tyler’s initial post at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Enough background.  When I first read this, over a cup of coffee this morning, my initial thinking was, what a crazy subject to be thinking about.  But, not wanting to make too rash of a judgement, I decided that I wouldn’t comment on this “conundrum.” Instead, I went outdoors and shoveled my driveway, sidewalk and my neighbor’s sidewalk.  Contemplating this while shoveling, did not markedly effect my initial thoughts, but it did, somewhat, assist me in clarifying them.

First, regarding the concept of whether an immortal is a murderer.  The probability of a human individual being immortal is quite small.  Though the question is asked in a serious and investigative manner, I fail to find any merit in pursuing an answer.  Would not the minds that can posit such a “conundrum” be better utilized in pursuing answers to individual rights in the here and rational now?

Secondly, in regards to the main catalyst of the premise, at least as presented by Solum’s post, anti-aging drugs.  If, the technology to create anti-aging drugs is perfected, and the said drugs are then made available, I would submit that medical technology would have advanced to such a state that death by accidental injury, think of the car accidents mentioned in the conundrum, or murder, would be of no concern either.  If an individual is mowed down, by either a car or gun toting psycho, zip, the hover ambulance would show up, gather up the remaining pieces, cart the “dead” to the local miracle hospital, a stitch here, a engineered limb there, a booster shot of anti-aging adrenaline, and wa la, the individual is good as new and sent on his merry way.  The other images presented in Tyler’s post at Marginal Revolution, restaurants serving only minced food, no contact sports, skiing, roller blading, etc., would also be, non-issues.  If anti-aging drugs, which result in immortality, can be created and made available, medical technology would also have made the leap to level of there is no such thing as being dead.  If you’re mangled, shot, or dead, we can fix you.

Though I enjoy the mental gymnastics of the “conundrum,” I fail to find any benefit in further pursuit of the questions asked.

Posted by John Venlet on 01/15 at 07:35 AM
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