One bioethicist has offered a thoughtful defense of what many claim is a scientific flight of fancy.

Cryonics – or preserving the body or brain by freezing them for resuscitation in a more technologically advanced age —  is generally regarded as science fiction. However, it is a small industry in the US, where an Arizona company, Alcor, has cryo-preserved about 80 people and 30 pets.

One bioethicist has offered a thoughtful defense of the procedure, arguing “that the potential value that it might help realize is very big” and that “there is a non-negligible, even if small, chance for success”.

In a new Journal of Medical Ethics article, ‘The case for cryonics’, University of Oslo philosopher Ole Martin Moen argues that cryonics has been unfairly dismissed as a scientific flight of fancy.

Moen argues that the technology, though perhaps still many decades away, will in principle be available to us eventually. Considering the huge potential it holds, we should invest more resources in the field. He observes:

“reviving cryopreserved persons, though it cannot be done today, does not require the development of radically new technologies; it requires further refinement and convergence of technologies that already exist.”

Moen discusses the various technological precedents that exist in current science, such as the routine freezing and thawing of human sperm, eggs and tissues. He is cautiously enthusiastic about the possibilities that cyronic revival would open up: 

“[We would have] a non-negligible opportunity to have a significantly longer life”.

At a more confident moment in his article Moen argues that we may have a rational imperative to opt for cryonic preservation:

“It is rational to opt for a small chance of survival when the alternative is no chance at all.”

Indeed, for most people it may sound like a flight of fancy. But by Moen’s cold logic this is something to take very seriously.  

Bioethicist explores the moral complexity and scientific plausibility of cryonics
Xavier Symons
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Xavier Symons

Xavier Symons is a bioethicist and scholar in residence at the Kennedy Institute for Ethics at Georgetown University.

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