Do we have a moral obligation to live for as long as possible?

As someone for whom this is a real life practical issue, not some idle philosophizing, even asking the question is repugnant to me. I have incurable cancer and at some point I will decide "enough is enough" and I'd like to be euthanized by a doctor. The doctor will then have to decide if my suffering is sufficiently unbearable and only if he comes to that conclusion is he allowed to do it. He'll have to justify his judgment to a committee and if they disagree he can (theoretically) be prosecuted for murder. This is insane and caused by assholes who believe human life is sacred or some such bullshit. (I'm in The Netherlands.)

I believe that much of our fundamentalism about maximising lifespan is fueled by fear of a swing in the opposite direction. The slippery slope from "it's ok to not always maximise" to "people routinely get shamed into agreeing to euthanasia" and beyond isn't just imaginative.

But I believe that it's one of those slippery slopes where we need to make up our minds about where we want to be and learn to stand there, despite the slickness and the angle. Because there is no easy ground anywhere near, we could keep human cell cultures that once were a person metabolizing for decades if we really wanted (and if it was done at scale it would make life hell for the actually living).

I'm reminded of/intrigued by Star Trek episodes.

How much of our attitude towards end-of-life is "learned" and result of "we have always done it like that"?

It's easy to imagine a planet/culture where people chose to go voluntarily and on their own terms and then everybody celebrates around that.

I do think it's a high burden on younger generations to pay "up-keep" for older generations, especially when technological advancements are pushing out/eliminating natural reasons for dying. How do you justify that especially if one can't contribute much to society anymore and maybe didn't raise kids on your own?

Interesting - I've kind of stolen my view on this question from Cicero. You don't have an obligation to live for as long as possible, per say.

What you have is an obligation to live a life that results in 1) you still finding meaning in what you are doing despite your old age and 2) that contributes something back to those around you, even in your old age.

At the end of the day, humans need to feel like that have responsibility / are making a difference (generalized statement I know) to feel their own life has much meaning. Just because you become a burden due to frailty or sickness does not mean you are unable to benefit others still.

Selected Cicero[1]: "But bear well in mind that in this entire discussion I am praising that old age which has its foundation well laid in youth. Hence it follows— as I once said with the approval of all who heard it— that that old age is wretched which needs to defend itself with words! Nor can wrinkles and grey hair suddenly seize upon influence; but when the preceding part of life has been nobly spent, old age gathers the fruits of influence at the last."

But it is our duty, my young friends, to resist old age; to compensate for its defects by a watchful care; to fight against it as we would fight against disease; to adopt a regimen of health; to practice moderate exercise; and to take just enough of food and drink to restore our strength and not to overburden it. Nor, indeed, are we to give our attention solely to the body; much greater care is due to the mind and soul; for they, too, like lamps, grow dim with time, unless we keep them supplied with oil.

Those, therefore, who allege that old age is devoid of useful activity adduce nothing to the purpose, and are like those who would say that the pilot does nothing in the sailing of the ship, because, while others are climbing the masts, or running about the gangways, or working at the pumps, he sits quietly in the stern and simply holds the tiller.

He may not be doing what younger members of the crew are doing, but what he does is better and much more important. It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgement; in these qualities old age is usually not only not poorer but is even richer."

[1] - has select quotes from Cicero on Old Age: https://newsletter.butwhatfor.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-...

I read an article about this, written by a doctor, about how doctors do it, he writes his colleagues mostly don't choose the longer but miserable life extension.

I tried to DDG the phrase "how doctors choose to die" to find the link, I didn't find it, but the search results tells me it's not a new topic.

> We might do better to ask whether we have good reasons to prolong our lives or whether we act virtuously if we seek to prolong our lives.

I think it all comes down to quality of life. If a person is still able to enjoy living, great. If they’re miserable and suffering from physical deterioration, I consider it immoral to suggest life-extending treatments unless there’s a good chance that life enjoyment is also restored.

I support the right-to-die movement. If I’m only able to survive on a machine in a bed, give me time to say goodbye and then let me drift away and die. Definitely don’t pressure me and suggest that I have an obligation to the living to stick around.

Recently I have started believing that humans are just another part of nature and nothing more. I don’t know whether this idea is part of some greater philosophical tradition. I have not looked into it, but it feels like it should be, i.e. probably somebody else has already thought and written about it. The good part of thinking like this is that you become content with everything, you don’t worry about stuff not working out because you believe there’s no reason why it should in the first place. The bad part is that you might affect the people around you.

  define first exactly what 
  we mean by a “moral 
  obligation”. 

  A moral obligation or a 
  moral duty is a morally 
  required form of conduct.

This defines the word obligation. The word "moral" and "morally" remains undefined.

Let's be frank, moral means good and evil, right and wrong, already antiquated concepts these days where money matters more than truth, and goodness/righteousness are interpretations that can more or less be purchased, or are entirely contingent on your perspective/the perspective of the agent reporting information to you.

The closest thing we have to a definition of moral or "good" and "evil" these days is "adheres to the law" and "does not adhere to the law" since there is no higher authority on the value of one's actions (unless you're a subjectivist/nihilist etc but if you're any of those positions, you don't really care about the question this article poses).

There is an idea of a shared common morality that makes certain things objectionable, cheating on your partner for instance, is frowned upon by many people. But is it immoral? It cannot be, because the opinion of infidelity changes with time, and to a growing number these days infidelity is considered natural, inevitable, or at least trivial. If the immorality of something shifts with the group mentality over time, and was merely inherited from a previous generation but without consideration in law (infidelity is considered in divorce proceedings, but only as grounds for the legal proceedings not as something that can be prosecuted itself) whence call it a matter of morality? Good and evil can change with time too -- but that's largely why I say these concepts aren't very useful to talk about. May as well constrain morality to law, even though that changes as well, it's less dynamic than group taboo.

So you have an obligation to live in accordance with the laws set by your host society.

Moral obligation to yourself and others begins and ends there. It is argued that you should be good to others -- those arguments are made entirely by those others , but in defence of their obvious bias, being good to others is just good business.

So how can the length of your life fit in? The law doesn't state that you must live as long as possible or that you must use your every waking second to help others, and even if it did, it would also have to stipulate that there is an imperative to achieving a high score at the end -- the achievement of which would be greatly aided by long life.

No, the length of your life has nothing to do with the law, so it either has nothing to do with morality or morality and law aren't equivalent in the case if this question.

Maybe it's a question of do you prefer being alive or being dead?

Since death is a state of existence no one can talk about, but could quite possibly be equivalent to ceasing to exist as a conscious, thinking person, I would argue that being alive has a good chance of being preferable to being dead in most cases.

On those grounds, living longer is preferable, but not in a moral way.

Some people are suffering and would prefer to end that suffering, even if the consequence is no longer existing. Can you call their desire immoral? Can you say with certainty that they are wrong to feel that way, if they have a condition that causes them extreme pain without end?

You can argue that they should keep going to wait for treatments to improve, to try experimental treatments etc. You can argue that pain makes us bad decision makers, that's certainly true as well.

Can it be argued that for all possible states of living, that they are all preferable to being dead? I guess you could be born into a messed up situation where you're imprisoned, abused and tortured by a creep or creeps, and if you're in that position there are surely moments where you think death is better. But again, everyone not in that position would say "better to wait for rescue no matter how long" -- it just seems unfair to say that death is always worse than being alive regardless of the circumstances of your life.

But bottom line, even if someone who terminates their life prematurely has made a bad decision, it cannot be said to be a morally bad one. Just an irrational one at most, and quite possibly a very rational one from their point of view.

It's just a choice based on maximising enjoyment/minimising suffering. That's not a moral question, it's just "do you like being alive? then keep living"

Definitely not. Modern morality must not place individuals in debt simply because they exist. Becoming alive isn't a choice. Participation in society in any way is not an obligation.

No human being wants to die technically. You want release from a bad situation. People who commit suicide are trying to free themselves not from living, but from some kind of suffering. They imagine it will give them rest. It won't. This points to a fundamental principle, that we will the preservation of our own being. No one wants nonexistence. We are constitutionally unable to will that, to will nothing. In order to do what appears to be that, we must first confuse being with nonbeing and construe this nothingness as something. But here we must distinguish between permission and active willing. I do not will my death, but take a permissive stance toward it under such and such circumstances.

So, you have the obligation not to shorten your life per se or to harm yourself intentionally, but you can under certain circumstances licitly permit your death.

In this case, we must distinguish between ordinary care (supplying the needs of the body, etc, as much as possible) and extraordinary care (administering medical treatments) and the nature of the illness. Examples (simplified because I'm not writing a book here):

x. If your illness is treatable and curable, but refusing treatment will lead to death, then you are obligated to receive treatment to the degree that such treatment does not compete with equal or superior concerns. Can you afford treatment? Could it deprive you of the means to live anyhow? These considerations would make treatment an option, but not an obligation.

x. If your cancer is terminal (i.e., it is incurable), and you are able to absorb nutrients, you are obligated to take in nutrition, but not to receive treatment.

x. If you are unable to receive nutrition (or the offering of nutrition causes harm), then you are not obligated to receive nutrition.

x. If treatment causes disproportionate harm in relation to the disease, then treatment is not an obligation.