Living Out a Life's Meaning

Abstract

The literature on aging has grown exponentially in recent years, accompanied by a slew of reports providing data detailing progress, challenges, and opportunities in caring for the aging. Yet such reports too often omit the lived experience of older persons and in-depth discussion of the particular challenges and opportunities that arise within what Janelle S. Taylor calls "moral laboratories." The Evening of Life: The Challenges of Aging and Dying Well, a volume edited by Joseph E. Davis and Paul Scherz and to which Taylor is a contributor, helps fill this gap. With expert analyses from social scientists, philosophers, and health care professionals, the book contains evocative stories that facilitate reflection on the complexity, ambiguity, and diversity of being in later years.

Keywords: aging; authenticity; bioethics; caregiving; dying; interpersonal relationships; narratives; older people; personhood; self-development; values; virtues.