Philosophy is the most importance discipline, because everything you believe results from a philosophical claim. This is so even with "hard science." Consider the issue of defining disease.
What is aging? Really, let's talk about this in a classroom format. Is aging a natural biological process? Or is aging a disease? What is it?
I guarantee that your answer will be based on your moral and aesthetic judgments rather than your scientific judgments. When you say that someone should "act his age," what does that have to do with science? That's a value judgment you're making based on a person's behavior relevant to cultural expectations. How can a man be 40-years-old with no wife and kids? Well, why do you care? What does a person's chronological age have to do with the discussion?
If aging is a natural biological process, do we commit the naturalistic fallacy by merely accepting time's wear on our bodies? Cancer is natural. Chemotherapy is unnatural. Losing teeth is natural. False teeth or dental implants are unnatural. Thus, we do recognize that some natural processes should be attacked through unnatural means.
Why then accept aging as a natural condition, rather than treating it through the use of drugs?
Why do we treat aging as a natural process, and make it illegal to use testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH) for anti-aging purposes? While it is legal to use testosterone and HGH under certain circumstances, it's against FDA regulations for a doctor to prescribe either for anti-aging purposes.
By making drug use illegal for anti-aging purposes, aren't we making a value judgment about aging? Isn't it really a moral claim - tautological at best- that, "It's wrong to resist aging." Or an aesthetic claim that one should, "Grow old gracefully."
Once you realize that philosophy is everywhere, you become less concerned with what a person's claim is; and more concerned for the philosophical basis for the claim. Why do doctors claim that HGH is an ineffective anti-aging treatment? Is it because Sylvester Stallone doesn't really exist? Or is it because the doctors don't want him to exist?
