MODULE 6: Review for final exam

• Please do self-rating at Canvas (due Dec 9)
• Course evaluations are at Canvas
• Study guide
• Workbook
• Office hours this week: after class today, Thursday 2-3

MODULE 6: Radical Life Extension

Review Monday

• Come with questions!

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Two questions Fischer and Cave ask

1. Would RLE 6000 be good for you? (prudential question)
2. Would RLE 6000 be good for us? (question about ethics, justice)

Cave on the second question: 

1. If everyone took, then there would be a huge population increase (see graphs below)
2. If it was restricted to the rich .... social injustice 
   
3. If there were limits on childbearing .... social injustice

Fischer: limit to the rich OR have a lottery, but no limits on reproduction (Cave and Fischer Part 2, ch. 4, p. 150-154)

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Let's explore these questions about distribution, but switch to RLE200

• RLE200 eliminates aging, cancer, heart disease, etc.
• enough to make the lifespan 200 years on average, not 6000
• suppose we really had RLE200
• how should it be distributed?  WORKBOOK
• after we discuss, we will vote using this poll

ChatGPT prompt: what would be the population
10,000 years from now if people reproduced
 at replacement level and lived for 6000 years?

ChatGPT prompt: what would be the population
10,000 years from now if people reproduced
 at replacement level and lived for 200 years?

Poll

MODULE 6: Radical life extension

 Tuesday confusion

• Tuesday classes are the usual Tuesday classes!
• Our last day is Monday

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Final exam (tab above)

• A few differences from last time
• Movie question
• Review Monday

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Radical life extension

1. Would it be good for you, as an individual? (the prudential question)
2. Would it be good for us, as a society? (the ethical question)

Would it be good for you, as an individual? 

• Summary of arguments

_________________________

Would it be good for us?

• population concerns
• inequality

Source: chat-gpt

RLE can't be for everyone, but it could be available to a few

• is this an unacceptable inequality? (Fischer discusses in next excerpt)

MODULE 6: Radical life extension

Preview

• Final exam study guide is at tab above -- we will discuss a little Wednesday and review Monday.
• Office hours next week -- Monday 2-3 plus later in week (TBA)
  

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Recap: Should We Choose to Live Forever? 

Our current lifespan

]

Lifespan with radical life extension                                           

Fischer and Cave: two questions

1. Would radical life extension be good for me?  (this is Fischer's focus)
2. Would radical life extension be good for us? What would be the social costs? (Cave, next time)

Two camps

1. John Martin Fischer, Thomas Nagel.  Optimists about RLE.
2. Stephen Cave, Bernard Williams, others.  Pessimists about RLE. Fischer calls them "immortality curmudgeons" and "apologists for the status quo."

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Fischer's optimism about RLE 

1. Makes positive argument for RLE--all the goods of life will still be available (ch. 2 section 8, p. 105)
2. Responds to the pessimists worries about RLE--thinks they're mistaken worries
• loss of identity
• loss of motivation
• loss of narrativity -- no coherent, human "story of my life"
• altered stages -- loss of old age, addition of other stages
• problem of boredom -- can't avoid boredom; or if I could, only by losing my identity (Williams)

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Altered stages worry

No old age

• negligible senescence (Andrew Steele's term) -- chances of death will be the same throughout the lifespan
• when you're 5900 years old you won't think "I'm running out of time" (Lost Horizon--no sunset!)
• you may think "I've been alive for a long time" .... maybe there will be special honors for "elders" in their 5000s...
• there won't be old age in our sense....no "senescent old age"

What should we think about the loss of senescent old age? Let's draw on past authors to think about this.

1. Jeffrey Arnett -- talks about master narratives; the new stage of emerging adulthood
2. Patrick Tomlin -- remember taking adulthood away from Erin -- how is loss of old age the same or different?
3. Laura Carstensen--what's the impact of thinking "time is running out"? will immortals ever feel this way?
   
4. Simone de Beauvoir -- what's the impact of "time is running out"? is it good or bad?

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What does Fischer say about the altered stages worry?

• "an envisaged immortal life does not have to be just like ours to be recognizable as a human life" (ch2 section 6.2, p. 86)
• people in 1900 would have been crazy to make the "altered stages" objection to extending life from 40 to 80 years (ch2 section 6.2, p. 87-88)

WORKBOOK

MODULE 6: Radical life extension

Our questions

1.  Is the human lifespan about the right length, just as is, despite death and disease?
2. Or would we better off if we could "cancel old age" (as Steele proposes) and make it much longer? 

_________________________

Fischer and Cave, Should You Choose to Live Forever?

Living forever (definition, p. 62-69)

1. True immortality  (not what he's interested in)
•  impossible to die
2. Radical life extension 
• no aging, disease, or internal catastrophes like heart attacks and strokes
• can still die due to external causes
• normal lifespan would be about 6000 years
• rejuvenation & permanent youthfulness
• Q: will people look different as they get older?
3. Radical life extension PLUS favorable circumstances
• resources
• fellow travelers

Some of these details rule out key problems in our movies

Problem of isolation

• Age of Adaline, In Time, Man from Earth
• solved by fellow travelers
• Q: is it completely solved?

Problem of generation blurring

• Will Salas's mother appears to be his age (In Time)
• Adaline's daughter appears to be her mother (Age of Adaline)
• John Oldman's son appears to be his father (Man from Earth)
• problem solved by no rejuvenation, no permanent youthfulness
• Q: is generation blurring actually a problem? 
• Q: will it be completely eliminated by RLE as specified by Fischer?

_________________________

-

Should we choose RLE under favorable circumstances?

Thomas Nagel's thought experiment (p. 61-62)

1. If you were offered one more week of life, you would always choose it.
2. Those extra weeks could add up to 6000 years, if RLE existed.
3. Therefore, RLE is choiceworthy.

Fischer--this argument is suggestive but sort of cheats -- it circumvents problems with 6000 years by considering them week by week (p. 73)

Compare Thanksgiving Dinner dilemma--should I eat everything on the table? Problem vanishes if you consider the issue bite-by-bite.

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Are there huge problems with living for 6000 years?

Fischer--here are the alleged problems -- but I will show that none of them are serious problems 

1. Personal identity -- the 6000 year old person one day inhabiting my body won't be me
2. Death is motivating -- RLE will lead to procrastination
• What does Fischer say?
3. Narratives create meaning, and a 6000 year long life will be narratively deficient
4. Life has stages -- but a super-long life won't have stages
5. Boredom

Bernard Williams, "The Makropulos Case"

An argument about both personal identity and boredom

1. To stave off boredom, I will have to shift to one activity after another.
2. Either I will be unsuccessful, so incredibly bored, so life won't be worth living.
3. Or I will be successful, but no longer me.
4. One way or the other, I won't be better off choosing RLE

Next part of book will respond to this

MODULE 6: Radical life extension

Note:

• We don't have class on Monday Nov 24 or Wed Nov 26
• We do have class Friday! 

We'll use the WORKBOOK for today's discussion.

MODULE 6: The cure for old age

MODULE 6: MAKING LIFE LONGER

0  CHILDHOOD                MIDLIFE               OLD AGE  100

Module 1-4: How is wellbeing related to age?
Module 5: Which age-related inequalities are unjust, which are just?
Module 6: Should we cure old age and alter the human lifespan?

PLAN

1. Could there be a cure for aging? Should such research be pursued? (Nov 17)
• Reading: Andrew Steele, excerpt from Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old)
2. Should you choose to live forever? (Nov 19, 21, rest of semester)
• Reading: Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer, excerpts from Should You Choose to Live Forever: A Debate
• Fischer: YES
• Cave: NO
• Next time: Fischer 
•  notions of immortality and extreme longevity in religions, novels, movies, plays
• the notion of extreme longevity that he will focus on
• we'll talk about extreme longevity in the four movies you watched

_________________________

Andrew Steele, Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older without Getting Old

• Could there be a cure for aging? 
• Should such research be pursued?

Senescence--physical process of developing markers of old age

Galapagos tortoise has negligible senescence

• "1-2 percent change of dying every year" (p. 2)
• just as likely to die in first year as in 100th year

Galapagos Tortoise
Negligible senescence, lifespan: around 175 years

Human senescence 

• grey hair, wrinkles, balding, elongating noses and ears
• hearing loss, sight loss, weaker muscles, memory loss
• heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, etc.
• risk of death doubles every 8 years (p. 2)

Old age as an underlying risk factor for diseases (pdf page numbers)

• "being old is the single biggest risk factor for all of the diseases just mentioned" (p. 3)
• "An 80-year-old is 60 times more likely to die than a 30-year-old--so, too are they 30 times more likely to get cancer, and 50 times more likely to get heart disease." (p. 3)
• "aging is responsible for more than two-thirds of deaths--and over 90 percent in rich countries" (p. 4)

But we take aging for granted and don't seek a cure for aging itself 

"A natural disaster on this scale would be utterly unprecedented. A huge and immediate international relief effort would be mounted, even if success was uncertain. If a disease with these symptoms were to suddenly arise in a previously ageless civilization, Herculean efforts to cure it would begin as soon as possible.

 But its ubiquity also means that aging is the default; its inevitability makes it invisible. We see individual tragedies as friends and relatives age, and acknowledge the horror of the specific diseases that afflict them but society is collectively casual about aging itself. This rolling worldwide pandemic of death and suffering goes unrecognized, too large to grasp, obscured by its own enormity.

We humans are beset by a cocktail of cognitive biases." (p. 5-6)

Cognitive biases that stop people from seeking a cure for old age

• Can't imagine every being old, or what it might involve (p. 5)
• Old people hidden away in hospitals, retirement homes (p. 5)
• status quo bias (p. 12)
• adaptive preference (Nussbaum discusses)

Curing old age will lead to some problems, but that's not a good reason to be satisfied with aging

"The consequences will be profound and wide-ranging, for all of us personally, for our friends and families, and for society and humanity as a whole, and the benefits will far outweigh the costs. Many people's initial reaction to the idea of treating aging is cautious, or even hostile: we wonder what the consequences of longer lifespans will be for population growth or the environment; if treatments for aging would primarily benefit the rich and powerful; or whether dictators could live forever, imposing endless totalitarianism. However, almost any objection can be answered by turning the question around and replacing it with a simple hypothetical alternative: if we lived in a society where there was no aging, would you invent aging to solve one of these problems?" (p. 11)

The goal: negligible senescence 

"what we should aim for is negligible senescence: a risk of death, disability, frailty and illness which doesn't depend on how long ago you were born. Our chronological age would no longer be the defining number by which we live our lives--we would, as individuals and as a civilization, be ageless. That is what a real cure for aging would look like, and it's something we could and should aim for as a species." (p. 12)

Is finding a cure really possible?

• Atul Gawande, Being Mortal p. 46-47 -- all complex systems deteriorate, a cure for senescence isn't possible
• Steele and others--yes it is possible

 

 

MODULE 5: A child's right to lenience

 

_________________________

Gideon Yaffe

Why are children entitled to lenience?

Ethan Crumbley
At age 15, killed 4 classmates in Michigan
Tried as an adult -- i.e. not in juvenile court
Sentenced to life without parole
Parents convicted of involuntary manslaughter
for buying him gun and ignoring warning signs

_________________________

The Developmental View

• The precocity problem
• The empirical dependence problem

_________________________

Reasons that should stop a 25 year old counterpart from committing murder 

1. Victims would suffer
2. Victims would lose years of life
3. Victims' families would be devastated
4. Murder is illegal
5. I've had a say over the law because I have the ability to vote***

Reasons that should have stopped Ethan Crumbley from committing murder -- one less reason, so less culpable (5: "those who are reduced in culpability are deserving of lesser sanction")

1. Victims would suffer
2. Victims would lose years of life
3. Victims' families would be devastated
4. Murder is illegal
5. --

Assumption: the government can do less to someone who has no say in the law.

Similar idea, generally seen as plausible: "No taxation without representation!"

_________________________

Objections to the disenfranchisement view

1. Teens are somehow different -- 5 year olds
2. 
   

_________________________

Other groups who can't vote.  Are they also owed lenience?

He says a child facing punishment can say "not my law" and they are owed lenience.

1. Visitors and immigrants can't vote, so are they owed lenience?  NO.  
• They can't really say "not my law" because they came to this country voluntarily.  
• Compare the scenario where you are a guest in a house with a "no shoes in the house" rule.  True, you didn't make the rule, but you can't really say "it's not my rule" since you decided to come to the house.  
• (52:00)  
2. Asylum seekers can't vote, so are they owed lenience?  YES. 
• They're not like the visitors and immigrants because they didn't exactly choose to come to this country. 
• So they can say "not my law" and they're owed lenience. (54:08) 
3. Felons in some states. YES  
• If they lose the vote and then commit another crime, they can say "not my law" and they're owed lenience.  
• He says felons should not actually lose the right to vote.
• (1:03:25) 

_________________________

What does Yaffe say about why children shouldn't have the vote? (1:00:00)

• Their parents have a huge influence on them
• So a vote for kids is just an additional vote for their parents
• It's unfair to childless people for people with kids to have an extra vote.
• It's inconsistent with equality for all.

_________________________

In his talk Yaffe says there are just 3 ways to explain why children are owed lenience.  

1. Developmental View.  Has the precocity and empirical dependence problems.
2. Disenfranchisement View -- Yaffe supports
3. Irrational sympathy View

Can you think of a fourth view?

MODULE 5: A child's right to lenience

Spring courses

1. Phil 3375 - The Meaning of Life
2. The ethics minor

_________________________

Next week--RR31 is due on Nov 19 (worth 5 points instead of 1)

_________________________

Recap

Our discussion of "no age voting" last time

• John Wall: It's discriminatory/involves a double standard that (A) we exclude children from voting based on their lack of competence, but (B) we generally don't exclude old people who lose competence.
• We discussed lots of different responses and you will vote on which is the best!

Possible responses

1. No double standard. Technically, there's no double standard because Wall is comparing gaining the right to vote (need competence) and retaining the right to vote (don't need competence).
2. Exclude more people. We should continue excluding children and also exclude some older people to avoid discrimination/a double standard.
3. Influence is the reason.  The reason for for excluding children isn’t competence in the first place; rather, it's the fact that children are under their parents influence, so can't vote independently.
4. Protection is the reason. The reason for excluding children isn’t competence in the first place; rather, it's protecting children, keeping them carefree
5. Not demeaning. Wrongful discrimination has to be demeaning (Bidadanure).  Children aren’t demeaned by not voting, but old people would be demeaned by losing the right to vote. 

What's your view of no-age voting?

1. Great idea
2. Intrigued
3. Terrible idea

_________________________

Lenience for child criminals

• lenience (definition):  the fact or quality of being more merciful or tolerant than expected; clemency.
• children tried in juvenile court ... but judge can decide to try a minor as an adult
• lighter sentences--

• no death penalty in any state
• no JLWOP (juvenile life without parole) in over half of states
• not housed with adult prisoners

Gideon Yaffe (YAFF--ee)

Amazon

• professor at Yale law school and in departments of philosophy and psychology
• "Children deserve leniency in law and the reason is political"
• We will watch 0-16 and 38:55 - 48

 

MODULE 5: Voting rights

Bidadanure's question: when are age inequalities just/unjust?

Recap of her principles:

1. Approximate generational equality
2. Prudentical Lifespan Account + principle of efficiency
3. 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

_________________________

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)

1. right to vote (18)
2. right to make your own medical decisions (18)
3. right to make legal and financial decisions (18)
4. right to consent to sexual relations (compex)
5. right to marry without parental consent (18)
6. right to work, complex child labor laws apply to children under 18
7. right to drink (21)
8. right to drive (16)

Children's rights

Rights children have because they are children.

1. the right to be cared for by a parent or guardian
2. right to lenience if they commit a crime 

_________________________

The right to vote

1. voting age in US was 21 until 1971, then lowered to 18
2. in the UK and elsewhere, it's being lowered to 16
3. some argue it should be lowered to 14
4. Political scientist David Runciman argues it shouild be lowered to 6
5. John Wall is arguing for something else: ageless voting 

John Wall --  his article -- Children's Voting Colloquium

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

_________________________

Wall's arguments for ageless voting 

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)

_________________________

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.

_________________________

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.

_________________________

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

MODULE 5: Justice across ages (5)

Age and politics

Bidadanure chap. 7, "Youth-ing Politics"

Young people vote less -- LINK

Age of US leaders -- LINK

Terminology

1. De facto -- exclusion just as a matter of fact
2. De jure -- exclusion by law (age requirements for house, senate, president)

Why is age-based exclusion problematic?

1. "does not necessarily flout the ideal of fair equality of opportunity" (p. 213) -- the people who are now young will later get their opportunity
2. "the absence of young adults in parliaments is a likely barrier to the enactment of intergenerationally just policies" (p. 213) (this is her answer)

Assumption: youth more likely to support policies good for youth...but is it true?

• Evidence -- see graphs in this article

_________________________

Solutions Bidadanure supports

Solution #1: lower the voting age (Monday, ageless voting)

Solution #2:  youth quotas in legislatures/parliaments

Is this an age group or birth cohort quota?

1. age group quota -- e.g. 20% of the House must be under 35   (mainly this)
2. birth cohort/generation quotas -- e.g. 20% of the House must be Gen Z or Millennial 

Her two defenses of youth quotas

1. Substantive benefit -- quotas needed for policies that benefit younger people 
2. Symbolic benefit -- sends a message that youth are fit for leadership

Which principle of justice is she drawing on?

1. Approximate generational equality
2. Prudential lifespan account -- differences should be acceptable to someone planning their life from beyond the lifespan -- principle of efficency  
3. Relational justice -- no stigmatizing, demeaning, dominating, etc.

_________________________

How would youth quotas work?

• Uganda, Kenya, Morocco
• in the US?

_________________________

Increasing youth representation is Bidadanure's goal

Decreasing very old leaders as a separate goal

• we have age minimums (25 for House, 30 for Senate, 35 for president)
• should we have age maximums?  65? 75?  (no Trump vs. Biden)
• term limits

_________________________

Objections to Bidadanure?

I. The puzzle of age discrimination: is age like gender and race?  (ch. 1, p. 23-30) Oct 27

• gender and race inequalities tend to be diachronic (therefore esp. bad)
• birth cohort inequalities tend to be diachronic
• age group inequalities tend to be synchronic (less bad, but may still be unjust)

II. Principles of justice, fairness, equality when it comes to age groups and birth cohorts

1. approximate equality between birth cohorts/generations (ch. 1, p. 42-47) Oct 31 
• Gen Z shouldn't do worse than the previous generation
2. Prudential Lifespan Account (PLA) (ch. 2, p. 50-55)  Oct 27, Nov 3
• account of how resources should be distributed across age groups
• principle of efficiency
3. Relational justice (ch. 3, p. 95-110) Nov 3
• no dominating, disrespecting, demeaning, stigmatizing, marginalizing, humiliating

III. Applications

1. workplace  (ch. 5, p. 172-178) Nov 3, Nov 5
2. politics (ch. 7, p.219-221) Nov 7

MODULE 5: Justice and Work

No office hours today

_________________________

Age inequalities (work-related)

1. EU job guarantee -- country implementation plans : help for under 30s only
2. Mandatory retirement 

Are these age-inequalities fair? 

Or are they unfair, discriminatory, wrong, bad...

Juliana Bidadanure 

Saul Levmore 

Martha Nussbaum 

_________________________

EU job guarantee

Imagine: a resentful 40 year old.  What would Bidadanure say to him?

Her principles of justice 

1. Approximate generational equality
2. Prudential Lifespan Account 
• lifespan efficiency principle--early interventions have diachronic benefits (most relevant principle)
3. Relational justice --no dominating, demeaning, stigmatizing, etc.

_________________________

More on the Prudential Lifespan Account

Imagine these authors looking at these policies--

1. Michael Slote
2. Simone DeBeauvoir
3. Cicero

_________________________

Mandatory retirement

• Where legal, where illegal?
• Illegal in the US since 1986
• With exceptions for certain professions (pilots, air traffic controllers, military 
• legal in many countries--e.g. Finland

_________________________

What does Bidadanure say about mandatory retirement?

"although mandatory retirement could be justified in principle on grounds of diachronic fairness, the strategy only makes sense if we have good reasons to believe that it can plausibly lead to reduced unemployment rates for the young. For most employment sectors, however, the evidence points in the other direction, and so our default position should be to reject the coercive policy as lacking justification as a way to improve the young's prospects." (p. 178) 

• If it did help the young, mandatory retirement would be OK because It would be supported by the Prudential Lifespan Account and lifespan efficiency
• not ruled out by relational justice, not demeaning to old people

_________________________

Saul Levmore & Martha Nussbuam, Aging Thoughtfully

Retirement chapter (annotated)

Martha Nussbaum -- 69 when she wrote this, still working at 78

Read passage on p. 68 --

•  Mandatory retirement "is one of the great moral evils of our times"

What would she say to Bidadanure?

• Bidadanure: relational justice--policies should not be demeaning to any age group
• Nussbaum: mandatory retirement IS demeaning! Read p. 61-62
• "my romance with work" .... "I'm talking mainly about work that the worker experiences as meaningful" (p. 62)
• Japanese workers over 100

Why are Finnish people satisfied with mandatory retirement?

1. great health care system
2. applies equally to everyone
3. adaptive preferences -- if you can't avoid X, you avoid resenting it by cultivating a preference for X; the preference is "adaptive"

_________________________

Saul Levmore--

• "employers and employees should be able to contract as they like" (p. 46)
• people should be able to choose employment contracts with mandatory retirement 
• currently illegal in the US
• this would boost employment of older workers

Nussbaum's objection:

• contracts will vary--more desirable employees won't have retirement clauses
• therefore opt-in mandatory retirement will be stigmatizing and demeaning

MODULE 5: Justice Across Ages (3) and (4)

Juliana Bidadanure, Justice Across Ages

Overview ... terminology at tab above

I. The puzzle of age discrimination: is age like gender and race?  (ch. 1, p. 23-30) Oct 27

• gender and race inequalities tend to be diachronic (therefore esp. bad)
• birth cohort inequalities tend to be diachronic
• age group inequalities tend to be synchronic (less bad, but may still be unjust)

II. Principles of justice, fairness, equality when it comes to age groups and birth cohorts

1. approximate equality between birth cohorts/generations (ch. 1, p. 42-47) Oct 31 
• Gen Z shouldn't do worse than the previous generation
2. Prudential Lifespan Account (PLA) (ch. 2, p. 50-55)  Oct 27, Nov 3
• account of how resources should be distributed across age groups
• principle of efficiency
3. Relational justice (ch. 3, p. 95-110) Nov 3
• no dominating, disrespecting, demeaning, stigmatizing, marginalizing, humiliating

III. Applications

1. workplace  (ch. 5, p. 172-178) Nov 3, Nov 5
2. politics (ch. 7, p.219-221) Nov 7

_________________________

Principle of justice 2. Prudential Lifespan Account--PLA (ch. 2, p. 50-55)

• PLA is an account of the distribution of resources over different age groups
• social distribution of resources over age groups should match how I would prudently (out of self-interest) distribute resources over my own lifespan
• lifespan efficiency principle--resources should be allocated so they do the most good diachronically

_________________________

Principle of justice 3. relational justice (ch. 3, p. 95-110)

Distributive vs. relational justice

1. Distributive justice--involves how resources are distributed across individuals or groups (e.g. PLA)
2. Relational justice--involves relationships between individuals

Thought experiments showing they're different

Unequal marriage--each year husband and wife change who has absolute power in the relationship

Unequal castes--everyone in a society is an A or a B; the As dominate the Bs; after a year they switch roles; etc. 

• No problem of distributive justice
• But there's a problem of relational justice --there is non-stop domination! 
• Another moral of the story: changing places doesn't solve all problems. Change places in age cases doesn't make just anything ok.

Relational injustices: dominating, oppressing, stigmatizing, marginalizing, disrespecting, ignoring, demeaning

Relational injustices pertaining to age

1. infantilizing old people -- elderspeak
2. infantilizing young adults -- seniorsplaining

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Ch. 5: Injustices pertaining to age in the workplace

1. Question: when is differentiating by age benign and when is it wrongful discrimination? (p. 172)
2. Wrongful in a moral sense, not a legal sense (age discrimination laws vary and are very weak)
3. Bidadanure: differentiating by age is wrongful discrimination when it's demeaning

Age differentiation in workplace that's clearly demeaning--

1. Making the under 25's clean the bathrooms
2. Asking younger people to help older people with tech issues
3. what else?

Next time, apply these ideas to more realistic practices:

1. prioritizing youth --  the EU job guarantee -- country implementation plans
2. mandatory retirement (next time)

RR24: which principles does she apply to discuss the EU job guarantee?

1. Approximate generational equality
2. Prudential lifespan account + lifespan efficiency principle
3. Relational justice --no dominating, demeaning, stigmatizing, etc.

MODULE 5: Justice Across Ages (2)

Age groups vs. birth cohorts

• 20 year olds--you entered that group and you will leave it
• people born in 2005 -- you will never leave your birth cohort

Age group inequalities: when are they fair and just?

• adage "children are to be seen and not heard"

Birth cohort inequalities: when are they fair and just?

• age group inequalities can be temporary, since you leave your age group
• birth cohort inequalities more likely to be diachronic, since you never leave your birth cohort

Most of Justice Across Ages is about age group inequality

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Bidadanure, ch. 1.4

Ideas about birth cohort inequality

Philippe Van Parijs

intergenerational justice requires "each generation, each birth cohort, to make sure the situation of the next generation somehow measured, on a per capita basis is no worse than its own." (p. 42, quoting another author)

Luck egalitarians say: 

"our sex, social background, or ethnic origins are all instances of brute luck and should not be allowed to limit the scope of what one is able to do or have. The generation one is born into is anothe one of thesse circumstances we have no control over." (p. 42)

"the downstream generation shouldn't be worse off than the upstream generation" (p. 43)

Most other egalitarians would say

"We should have a presumption of equality when approaching inequalities between younger and older cohorts" (p. 43)

Bidadanure proposal

"I will accept a general principle of approximate equality between birth cohorts as a plausible goal of justice between overlapping generations. The principle ensures that benefits and burdens are shared over time in a way that does not make one general clearly worse off through no fault of its own." (p. 44)

"what we primarily want to ensure is that the downstream generation, which is in part at the mercy of the upstream generation, ends up at least as well off when compared to the previous generation." (p. 45)

"We should make sure that the brute luck of being born twenty years later does not significantly constrict one's opportunities, compared to what they would have been if one had been born twenty years earlier." We should show equal concern for the interests of all persons, regardless of the generation they were born in, because we all count in the same way." (p. 47)

What if your birth cohort is going to do somewhat worse...is that unfair?

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How should we think about birth cohorts?

1. Everyone born on Dec 31, 2005, at midnight
2. Everyone born on Dec 31, 2005
3. Everyone born in 2005
4. Everyone born in 1997-2012 (Generation Z)

By Cmglee - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Jean Twenge, Generations

1. based on technology, not major events
2. radios, TVs, washing machines, birth control, life-saving medicine, computers, internet, smart phones, AI
3. Gen Z: smart phones
4. Gen Z: the slow life strategy -- longer to grow up, longer to grow old

Using these concepts, Bidadanure is saying...

• Gen Z shouldn't do worse than the previous generations 
• We should prevent that from happening or remedy it if it does happen

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Let's add a little urgency to the question...

Gen Z could (this is speculative!) wind up faring somewhat worse than millennials because of ..... 

1. covid timing
2. fewer entry-level jobs because of AI
3. fewer entry-level jobs because of automation
4. climate change
5. increasing national debt, 
6. etc

Bidadanure--we should be taking stock of these worries and taking steps to prevent Gen Z from doing worse ... later in the book, more on exactly what we could do.

WORKBOOK