| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Ne... Star Trek: The Next Generation has an absolutely brilliant episode on this topic that touches on a lot of the things brought up in the article, as well as a concern you've brought up here in your comment: I definitely wouldn't want to put this kind of binding decision over future me A character facing this very conceit admitted that in the past, he was-like many others of his species-in favor of a policy whereby at 60 years old their kind would sacrifice themselves in an honorary fashion so as not to impede the progress of their descendants. Fifteen to twenty centuries ago, we had no Resolution. We had no such concern for our elders. As people aged, they... their health failed. They became invalids. And those whose families could no longer care for them were put away, into... deathwatch facilities, where they waited in loneliness for the end to come, sometimes... for years. They had meant something; and they were forced to live beyond that, into a time of meaning nothing. Of knowing that they could now only be the beneficiaries of younger people's patience. We are no longer that cruel[1] But the character later has a change of heart over the policy he was invariably complicit in supporting, while IMDB doesn't have the quote, paraphrasing it poorly-he opined about how his present and potentially future self may rebuke his past self for such a policy--a question of hindsight. Great episode, I encourage one who's interested in the discussion created by this article to read it. It's one of my personal favorite TNG episodes, as it creates an interesting confluence of emotional narrative and philosophical narrative that comes to a narrative conclusion, but leaves the philosophical question open in ways most episodes of the same 'template' don't. [1]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708724/quotes/qt1125551 |
Ethics at least covered the idea that Worf (paralysed) contemplating suicide.