Justice Between the Young and the Old
Dennis McKerlie - Oxford University Press, 2012
In a world of limited resources,
competition between the young and old prompt difficult questions of justice. In
countries with public pension and health care systems, or with aging
populations, there is often a concern that members of different generations are
not always treated fairly. Dennis McKerlie's monograph examines justice between
age-groups with the ultimate goal of a new theory of justice that effectively
grapples with those questions. In the realm of public policy and medical ethics
this is an important and timely topic, but surprisingly one that has received
relatively little attention from moral philosophers. McKerlie develops a
comprehensive view of fairness between age groups that applies the egalitarian
values of equality, or priority for the badly off, to temporal parts of lives —
not just to complete lives.
