Direction and Distribution in Life

Abstract

Chapter 5 distinguishes qualitative aging from becoming older in years by considering the fictional case of Benjamin Button. It then considers the significance and necessity at a given time of death in lives with different aging trajectories. There follows a discussion of better and worse distributions of goods and bads within lives, both on the assumption that we have and do not have control over the total of goods and bads and the length of life. Finally the chapter considers how the difference between conditional and categorical goods may affect appropriateness of tradeoffs between quantity and quality of life.