EMPIRICAL ETHICS AND THE DUTY TO EXTEND THE “BIOLOGICAL WARRANTY PERIOD”* By Colin Farrelly I. Introduction The specific demands of morality are contingent upon the context of the societies and situations we find ourselves in. What we owe to each other cannot be deduced from a priori premises. “Empirical ethics” is a partic- ular methodology that empirically-minded moral philosophers adopt to help shed light on the complex ways empirical considerations shape and influence the demands of morality and justice. “The ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context sensitivity of ethics.” 1 Propo- nents of such an interdisciplinary approach to ethics believe that “intel- lectually responsible philosophical ethics is one that continuously engages the relevant empirical literature.” 2 This paper focuses on an important but often neglected empirical reality of today’s world, a reality that has significant implications for the demands of morality. And this reality is global aging. Human populations are aging. People are, on average, living much longer lives than they have in the past and they are having fewer chil- dren. Life expectancy at birth for the global population is 68 years and is expected to rise to age 81 by the end of this century. 3 “Globally, the number of persons aged 60 or over is expected to more than triple by 2100, increasing from 784 million in 2011 to 2 billion in 2050 and 2.8 billion in 2100.” 4 The year 2050 will mark a truly unique time in human history, for it will be the first time that the number of persons age 60 or older will outnumber the number of children (age 0 –14 years) in the world. The aging of the world’s populations brings novel health challenges as the * I would like to thank the other contributors and the editors of this volume, as well as an anonymous referee, for their helpful feedback on an earlier version of the essay. I am also grateful to Bruce Carnes for taking the time to help explain to me many of the biogerontologi- cal concepts I employ in the paper. 1 Albert Musschenga, “Empirical Ethics, Context-Sensitivity, and Contextualism,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 30, (2005): 467–90. 2 John Doris and Stephen Stich, “As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics” in Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, ed. Frank Jackson and Michael Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 114–52, 116. 3 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, Highlights and Advance Tables (Working Paper No. ESA/P/WP.220, 2011), xviii. 4 Ibid., xvi. doi:10.1017/S0265052513000228 480 © 2013 Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation. Printed in the USA.