Bidadanure's question: when are age inequalities just/unjust?
Recap of her principles:
- Approximate generational equality
- Prudentical Lifespan Account + principle of efficiency
- Relational justice: no dominating, demeaning, stigmatizing, marginalizing
- she focuses on young adults, older adults, old adults
- youth job guarantee, youthing politics, mandatory retirement
- not much in book about children
This week--children's rights vs. adult rights
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Rights of all
- whether you are a child or an adult, you have a right to life
- whether you are a child or an adult, you have a right to free speech
- whether you are a child or an adult, you have a right to due process
- etc.
Adult rights
(Texas ages in parentheses)
- right to vote (18)
- right to make your own medical decisions (18)
- right to make legal and financial decisions (18)
- right to consent to sexual relations (compex)
- right to marry without parental consent (18)
- right to work, complex child labor laws apply to children under 18
- right to drink (21)
- right to drive (16)
Children's rights
Rights children have because they are children.
- the right to be cared for by a parent or guardian
- right to lenience if they commit a crime
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The right to vote
- voting age in US was 21 until 1971, then lowered to 18
- in the UK and elsewhere, it's being lowered to 16
- some argue it should be lowered to 14
- Political scientist David Runciman argues it shouild be lowered to 6
- John Wall is arguing for something else: ageless voting
What is ageless voting?
- no age requirement at all
- voting no longer an adult right, just as the right to free speech isn't an adult right
- but would 5 year olds be flooding to the polls?
- he has a solution...that we'll come to
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The Double Standard Argument
- Exclusion of children from voting "on grounds of incompetence is discriminatory, as it applies a false double standard to which adults are not held" (Wall)
The Competent Children Argument
- "My own argument has been that the most democratic definition of voting competence is neither literacy, knowledge of government processes, nor maturity, but rather the ability to participate in political discourse—something evidently possessed by children of most ages participating, for example, in climate movements, Black Lives Matter marches, gun legislation suits, religious freedom demonstrations, abortion campaigns, queer rights protests, labor unions, children’s parliaments, and a great deal more." (Wall)
Children's Votes Advance Children's Interests Argument
"Second, the argument is made that ageless voting would systematically benefit children, adults, societies, and democracies. The idea here is that, compared to the alternatives, democracy works. Put differently, there is a government interest in being pressured by all instead of just a selection of a society’s diverse citizens." (Wall)
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Let's focus on the double standard argument:
Old people: enfranchised regardless of low voting competence
Children: disenfranchised on the basis of low voting incompetence
Voting at age 100
(1) Generally*, old people retain the right to vote despite many developing low voting competence and it is right that they retain the vote.
(2) If old people rightly retain the right to vote despite low voting competence, then children shouldn't be excluded from voting on the basis of low voting competence.
(3) Therefore, children shouldn't be excluded from voting on the basis of low voting competence.
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Do old people always retain the right to vote regardless of competence?
- Generally, yes, but not always.
- In rare cases people (of any age) can be declared legally incompetent by a court of law, and in some states that will mean they lose their right to vote.
- Good source on legal incompetence and voting is here.
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What about little kids?
Wall, Give Children the Vote (2021) -- proposes "proxy-claim voting"
- A person would have one vote for themselves plus proxy votes for each of their children
- When the children decide to claim their vote, they vote for themselves
- Extremely young children won't do that!
- Proxy voting defended by JD Vance!
WORKBOOK