The Long Life is a major study of old age in western philosophy and literature. It presents eight interconnected essays that aim to sharpen thinking about old age by discussing how longevity affects major questions of moral philosophy. Each chapter probes a particular set of questions, first through the texts of a philosopher, and then through those of a literary figure. Helen Small is not so much interested in the philosophy of old age as in probing the significance of old age for philosophy. Hence she does not address the question most commonly addressed by philosophers of ageing: how should one respond to the changing conditions of life experienced in old age? Instead she asks: What is the relation between a long life and a good life? What does it mean to be a person? Does identity persist and for how long? and What is the place of old age in various conceptions of ‘goods and values and justice and knowledge?’ (p. 4).
Chapter 1 begins with Plato's claim that philosophy is best practised in old age and then probes the rationale for and the rhetorical uses of that claim. Helen Small then shows how Thomas Mann reworks Plato to support his definition of a literary artist. Chapter 2 looks at the place of old age in Aristotle's virtue ethics and argues that Aristotle concedes too little to loss of capacity in the criteria he uses for final judgement of a good life. Shakespeare's King Lear is then interpreted to analyse similar questions. Chapter 3 uses Alasdair MacIntyre's narrative view of lives to press further the author's case against Aristotle for failing to separate teleology from chronology in moral thinking about old age. She questions whether the widespread analogy between lives and narratives is a useful means of pointing us toward a good life since its underlying assumptions of continuity and moral progress often break apart on the rocks of incapacity, dementia or overwhelming external forces. Saul Bellow's late work Ravelstein (2004) is read as a story of two protagonists who resist seeing their lives as personal, self-contained narratives.
Chapter 4 shifts to the realm of ethics and policy, in discussing Norman Daniels's Rawlsian scheme for allocating resources across the span of life, while noting McKerlie's fear that prudence alone would not be sufficient to protect the most vulnerable. Helen Small refers to poems by Philip Larkin and Stevie Smith to extend her discussion of justice and choice. Chapter 5 reads Derek Parfit against Balzac's Le Pere Goriot to comment on Parfit's notion that if we were less biased toward the future, ‘we would be less worried by ageing and death’ (p. 20). Small next interprets Theodore Adorno's claims in his late lectures about old age as a window onto metaphysics and counterpoints them with treatments of old age in Dickens and Beckett. Chapter 7 looks at Bernard Williams's brief in the context of his argument about boredom and why we should not desire immortality. In her final chapter, Small examines current themes in the evolutionary theory of senescence; she concludes with a reading of Michael Ignatieff's novel Scar Tissue.
Long Life is a landmark book and deserves to be widely read by all serious scholars of ageing. It is erudite, eclectic, carefully argued, ambitious in scope and modest in its claims. I suspect that it will be read less by gerontologists than by philosophers and literary critics (though neither show much interest in ageing). Small shows very little familiarity with the gerontology literature except for some writing on the evolutionary biology of ageing. Though she is aware of certain authors in humanistic gerontology – or age studies – Small never engages contemporary philosophical writers on ageing such as Jan Baars, Martha Holstein, Ronald Manheimer, Harry R. Moody, Laurence McCullough or Margaret Urban Walker.
Since Helen Small's book is primarily a contribution to the epistemological foundations of modern philosophy, it intersects with most discourses in humanistic and social gerontology at rather an oblique angle. Her key questions about the The Long Life do not touch existential issues inherent in the lived life. In my view, Small's book is a powerful searchlight which can help us illuminate contemporary moral questions that call out for theoretical reflection, social and cultural study, and practical engagement: How should we live as we get older? What are reasonable standards of virtue and conduct in sickness and in health? What do older people owe future generations? What responsibility do ageing individuals have for their own moral and spiritual development? Addressing these questions will require more attention to religion, spirituality and community, and to love, loneliness, intimacy and preparation for death in various populations that differ by culture, race, ethnicity, class and gender. Nevertheless, The Long Life is a superb contribution to philosophy and literary criticism and will become an indispensable landmark for understanding longevity in those disciplines as well as in humanistic gerontology.
