1st Edition

Planning Later Life Bioethics and Public Health in Ageing Societies

276 Pages 4 Color & 6 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

276 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

276 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book examines the relevance of modern medicine and healthcare in shaping the lives of elderly persons and the practices and institutions of ageing societies. Combining individual and social dimensions, Planning Later Life discusses the ethical, social, and political consequences of increasing life expectancies and demographic change in the context of biomedicine and public health.... Read more

List of Figures and Tables

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Mark Schweda, Larissa Pfaller, and Silke Schicktanz

Part 1: Conceptions of Aging and Old Age

1. "A Season to Everything"? Considering Life-Course Perspectives in Bioethical and Public-Health Discussions on Aging

Mark Schweda

2. Becoming Oneself: Toward a New Philosophy of Ageing

Thomas Rentsch

3. Third Age and Fourth Age in Aging Societies – Divergent Social and Ethical Discourses

François Höpflinger

4. The Nature of the Fourth Age as a Challenge to Aging Societies

Paul Higgs and Chris Gilleard

Part 2: Perspectives and Problems of Old Age in the Context of Medicine and Healthcare

5. Old Age, Potentials, and Vulnerability

Andreas Kruse

6. Competence and Cognitive Deterioration: Are We Paying Enough Attention to Ethical Issues?

Perla Werner and Silke Schicktanz

7. Opt In or Opt Out? Rethinking the Provision of Life-Sustaining Medical Technology to the 'Old Old'

Hsiu-I Yang

8. Not Growing Old – Gracefully

Søren Holm

9. How to Think About Age-Group Justice: The Capabilities Approach

Nancy S. Jecker

Part 3: Individual Provisions and Public Policies in Aging Societies

10. Final Decisions for the Final Crisis: Hopes and Hypes Regarding the Advance Directive in Germany

Kai Brauer

11. Preparing Existential Decisions in Later Life: Advance Healthcare Planning

Ralf J. Jox

12. Articulating the Case for the Longevity Dividend

S. Jay Olshansky

13. Paradoxes of Planning Later Life: Anti-Aging Practices and the Lived Body

Larissa Pfaller and Frank Adloff

14. The Visionary Shaping of Dementia Research: Imaginations and Scenarios in Biopolitical Narratives and Ethical Reflections

Silke Schicktanz

15. Solidarity and Family Care for an Aging Population

Ruud ter Meulen

16. Legacies, Generations, and Aging Futures: The Ethics of Intergenerativity

Stephen Katz and Peter J. Whitehouse

Index

Biography

Mark Schweda is Research Fellow at the Department for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, University Medical Center Göttingen.

Larissa Pfaller is Research Associate at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and currently Deputy Professor at the University of Hamburg.

Kai Brauer is a sociologist and teaches empirical methods and sociology of aging at Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS).

Frank Adloff is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hamburg.

Silke Schicktanz is a bioethicist and Professor for Cultural and Ethical Studies of Biomedicine at the Department for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, University Medical Center Göttingen.

Planning Later Life provides an accessible and well-written volume for interdisci-plinary scholars and non-scientific readers. It acquires a reasonable balance between a width of perspectives and depths of discussing the implications of an increasing life expectancy."

Martin Sand, Monash Bioethics Review.