The day death will die

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show that population ageing and overpopulation are two of the greatest challenges in ethics and public policies for mankind in the XXI century. I introduce the concept of immortality, brought to the philosophical scene by John Harris, and I show that if life expectancy continues to increase at the same rate of the last 160 years it can be expected that in 40 thousand years from now life expectancy will reach approximately 10 thousand years, which will be considered immortality if we consider life expectancy in the beginning of the 21st century. I will also discuss the desirability of immortality and I will show that Hans Jonas´s argument that immortality will necessarily lead to the end of reproduction does not hold.