Module 5: Justice Across Ages
People are treated differently based on age all the time. Differences you have encountered....
- Up until recently, people under 70 had to remove shoes at airport, but 70+ didn't have to
- People over 65 get discount admission at many events, discounted DART tickets, free classes at some community colleges
- Student discounts
- kids meals only for kids
- discounts at theaters for kids
- drinking age
- under 3 on lap on planes
- sitting by door on airplane--16 and up?
- voting rights
- car insurance higher when younger
- no car rental if under 25
- driving age, marriage age
- renting to people
- travel age limits
- sexual relationships, age rules
- rides based on age, and not just height
- mandatory retirement 65, 62
- mandatory retirement for some professions
- qualifying times based on age
When is this sort of differential treatment by age fair and ethical? When is it unfair, unjust, discriminatory, unethical?
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Plan for Module 5
- Our main guide: Juliana Bidadanure (Bee-da-da-NOOR--ay) -- philosopher at NYU
- We're reading excerpts from her book Justice Across Ages: Treating Young and Old as Equals (2021)
- Originally from France, so has European perspective
- Also a few other authors
The general question about age and justice
Specific issues
- guaranteed jobs for youth (EU)
- mandatory retirement for elderly (Martha Nussbaum, Saul Levmore)
- right to vote --should the voting age be lower? (John Wall)
- leniency for child criminals (Gideon Yaffe)
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Reading this book (5 classes)--
- great to read full assignment, if you can (but it's hard)
- possible to answer RRs even if you can't read it all
- much better to write tentative semi-correct answers than to turn to AI in the prohibited ways
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Justice Across Ages Chapter 1 (excerpts)
- introduces some puzzles about justice and age
- introduces basic terms, concepts, theories
The puzzle of Mary and Beth
Is it unfair/unjust that Mary (professor, age 50) is better off than Beth (grad student, age 25), for age-related reasons?
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Terminology -- age group, birth cohort, diachronic inequality, synchronic inequality, egalitarianism
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The puzzle of differentiating by age vs. by race and gender
- Differentiating by race or gender...often seems wrong, unjust, discriminatory
- Similarly differentiating by age...seems not so bad!
Why does differentiating by age seem not so bad? Is it really just perfectly fine?
Examples (many on p. 25)
- White people can keep their shoes on at airport
- 70+ people can keep their shoes on at airport
- Apartment doesn't rent to men
- Apartment doesn't rent to people under 25
- Airline doesn't hire female pilots
- Airline doesn't hire pilots over 65
- Tech company prefers male applicants
- Tech company recruits at college job fairs
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Gut feeling--all the 1s are really bad, but the 2s are less bad. How can you defend that intuition?
The bad explanations (according to JB, p. 27-30)
- age is a good proxy for things we legitimately care about, bur race and gender are not
- age differentiation serves a good purpose
- age differentiation benefits different individuals in different contexts
The good explanation
- the 1s lead to diachronic inequality
- the 2s don't--everyone is sometimes advantaged, sometimes disadvantaged, by the 2s
So yes, she thinks age inequality is not as bad
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Complete lives egalitarianism -- only diachronic inequality matters
- Bidadanure thinks diachronic inequality does matter more, but it's not the only thing that matters
- Rest of book: when/why does synchronic inequality (between age groups or birth cohorts matte)?
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Next question--when/why is age inequality bad?
- Chap 2-- Prudential Lifespan Account
- Chap 3 -- Relational injustice
But first--section 1.4
- Much of the book is about age groups
- Section 1.4 is about birth cohorts/generations
- If your generation will be worse off than the previous generation, is that unfair?