Bioethics and Gerontology: The Value of Thinking Together

Abstract

The interdisciplinary field of bioethics focuses on what it means to be a person, flourish as a person and be respected as a person in different conditions of health, illness, or disability. Bioethics and policy research considers normative questions such as how a good society, through its priorities and investments, should demonstrate its commitments to the lives of different populations. Bioethics and humanities scholarship, often known as “health humanities,” shares affinities with age studies and disability studies, and with narrative-based approaches to the study of human experience. Gerontology is concerned with the many aspects of life that affect how people age, including social structures and values that influence the experience of growing old. In this paper, we briefly explore the evolution of bioethics, from a discourse that emerged in relation to developments in biomedicine, bioscience, and biotechnology; to research ethics; to broader ethical questions emerging from real-world conditions, with attention to how bioethics has considered the experience of aging. Until recently, most age-focused work in bioethics has concerned age-associated illness, particularly end-of-life decision-making. Given the reality of population aging and the ethical concerns accompanying the shift in age for most places in the world, the further evolution of bioethics involves greater attention to the support of flourishing in late life and to social justice and health equity in aging societies. We argue that the discourses of bioethics and critical gerontology, in dialogue, can bring new understanding of privilege and preference, disparity and disadvantage, and reflection and respect for aging individuals.