Abstract
This article inserts Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) into a bioethical conversation about the value of old age and old people. Exploring literary treatments of bioethical questions can supplement conversations within bioethics proper, helping to reveal our existing assumptions and clear the way for more considered views; indeed, as Peter Swirski has argued, literary texts can serve as thought experiments that illuminate the ramifications of philosophical ideas. This essay examines the novel's representation of a society without old people in conjunction with ideas about aging and life narratives put forward by philosophers and bioethicists such as Ezekiel Emanuel, Gilbert Meilaender, and Alasdair MacIntyre. While critics, and Huxley himself, view the Brave New World as dystopian primarily because of its depiction of a totalitarian society where art, truth, and meaning are sacrificed to pleasure and distraction and where the ruled are programmed not to question the values of their rulers, the novel also makes clear that the excision of old age has significant political, moral, and emotional costs.
Keywords
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Bioethics, Age studies, Disability studies
Date of this Version
8-17-2019
Recommended Citation
Linett, Maren, "“No Country for Old Men”: Huxley’s Brave New World and the Value of Old Age" (2019). Department of English Faculty Publications. Paper 16.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/englpubs/16
Comments
This is the author-accepted manuscript of Linett, M. “No Country for Old Men”: Huxley’s Brave New World and the Value of Old Age. J Med Humanit 40, 395–415 (2019). Copyright Springer, the version of record is available at DOI: 10.1007/s10912-017-9469-x .