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The ageing of a population creates pressure for social reform. As persons aged above 60 make up an increasing proportion of the population, new challenges and opportunities arise for example in the workplace and in the sphere of care, to name just two contexts for social reform. This article examines how the law should regulate social reform in an ageing society. More specifically, it examines how the legal prohibition on age-discrimination present in a number of jurisdictions should be interpreted from a normative point of view. The main claim of the article is that we should endorse a narrow construal the legal prohibition of age-discrimination. According to this construal the prohibition of age-discrimination prohibits only policies and practices that show disrespect for persons due to their age. A wider construal that prohibits also policies and practices that have a differential impact on the interests of persons because of their age is unjustified. After elaborating the case against the wide construal of age-discrimination, the article explains the narrow construal in more detail by elaborating on the relevant sense in which policies and practices may not show «disrespect» for persons due to their age. It then illustrates the practical relevance of the narrow construal of the prohibition against age-discrimination in the context of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many agree that developed states must bear greater burdens in tacking climate change than developing states for two reasons: their greater historical responsibility for global warming and their greater wealth. People disagree, however, about the relative importance of these two reasons. This article develops an "institutional view" to address this issue, which consists of two claims. First, many emissions of greenhouse gases that took place before the establishment of legitimate institutions of global climate governance do not give rise to climate-related duties. Second, the absence of legitimate institutional global governance, more generally, undermines full rights to wealth on the part of developed states and thus removes an objection to their having to contribute more to tackling the challenges of climate change. The upshot is that, at present, climate duties should be allocated between states mainly on the basis of wealth rather than history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the nature of the demographic policies that developed states should pursue in response to population ageing. The need for the states to have a relative emphasis on two types of demographic policy, pronatalism and replacement migration, that aim at increasing the proportion of working-age persons in their populations is tackled. The conditional duty of developed states to prioritize replacement migration over pronatalism is also explored.

Why, and to what extent, must taxpayers share the costs of raising children with parents? The most influential argument over this question has been the public goods argument: Taxpayers must share costs with parents because and to the extent that child-rearing contributes toward public goods by helping to develop valuable human capital. However, political theorists have not examined the public goods argument in a context in which replacement migration is available: If replacement migration can provide valuable human capital more efficiently than child-rearing, can the public goods argument still justify a taxpayer obligation to share the costs of child-rearing? This article argues that there are importantly different versions of the public goods argument, and that on a plausible version of that argument, it can withstand the replacement migration challenge under most circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a novel line of argument in support of welfare-state capitalism proposed by Gerald Gaus. The novelty of Gaus' argument lies in its contention that welfare-state capitalism can be justified on the basis of the contractualist mode of justification made famous by Rawls. Gaus argues that economic regimes, such as property-owning democracy, are more coercive than welfare-state capitalism insofar as they require a greater degree of tax-imposed redistribution among citizens. Given the degree of coercion needed by these regimes, he contends that parties to a contract would not agree to them, whereas they would agree to welfare-state capitalism by virtue of the lesser degree of coercion it needs. It is argued in this article that Gaus fails to show that welfare-state capitalism is less coercive than property-owning democracy. Indeed, once one directs one's attention towards those with the smallest range of valuable opportunities for action, there is reason to worry more about the coercion imposed by welfare-state capitalism than by property-owning democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book "Climate Matters," by John Broome is presented. Topics mentioned include the climate policies of a government, the prevention of climate change, and the importance of public health management. Also mentioned are the prevention of human rights violation, the social justice management, and the importance of environmental protection.

The article focuses on parental partiality which, according to the author, consists of actions by which parents bestow greater resources and affection on their own children than on others. The author believes that parental partiality contributes to inequality amongst children because different parents are not equality able or willing to provide support for their children. The author stresses the importance for parents to comply with the demands of morality.

The article examines whether liberal egalitarians should endorse the conclusion that parents are entitled to receive support from nonparents. It discusses the most important statement of it set forth by Anne Alstott. It argues for the importance of addressing the question of parental justice and explains why some liberal egalitarians may think they cannot give a positive answer to it.

The article focuses on the temporal subject of justice. It examines the strongest defenses of the lifetime view, according to which justice requires taking people's whole lives as relevant when assessing and establishing their distributive entitlements and obligations. It discusses important considerations about responsibility, compensation, and hardship.

Racial profiling appears to be morally more troubling when the racial group that is the object of the profile suffers from background injustice. This article examines two accounts of this intuition. The responsibility- based account maintains that racial profiling is morally more problematic if the higher offender rate within the profiled group is the result of social injustices for which other groups in society are responsible. The expressive harm based account maintains that racial profiling is more problematic if it makes background injustice vivid and thereby causes the profiled to feel resentment. I raise problems with both accounts and suggest a third account. On the humiliation- based account, individuals who are subjected to racial profiling in a context of background injustice are placed in a situation in which they cannot prevent appearing to onlookers in a demeaning way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies that shift the costs of higher education from the taxpayer to the university student or graduate are increasingly popular, yet they have not been subjected to a thorough normative analysis. This paper provides a critical survey of the standard arguments that have been used in the public debate on higher education funding. These arguments are found to be wanting. In their place, the paper offers a more systematic approach for dealing with the normative issues raised by the funding of higher education. This approach is drawn from the political theory of John Rawls, whose view seeks to reconcile the values of equality, efficiency, and liberty. I show that, contrary to what we may think at first, an egalitarian approach like Rawls' does not in principle rule out policies that shift the funding burden from taxpayers to students or graduates. Which funding policy that approach selects as most fair will instead depend on the likely impact on the lifetime income prospects of the worst-off group in society, and this is a question which will need to be settled by empirical evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How, exactly, must we strike the balance between security and equality? Must we insist, out of respect for the equality of persons, that the police refrain from using ethnic profiling and opt for some other strategy in their pursuit of terrorists, or must we allow the police to continue with this policy, which seems to sacrifice equality for the sake of security? This paper assesses the ethical status of ethnic profiling from the perspective of the ideal of equality. The paper shows how the ethical status of ethnic profiling changes depending on how exactly we specify the egalitarian ideal. Furthermore, it argues that on a plausible interpretation of the ideal of equality, ethnic profiling is not in principle objectionable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the moral case for a right to religious accommodation, which requires that religious conduct be free of any serious burdens placed on it by the state. Two different types of normative argument for this right are outlined and rejected. The first appeals to religion as a ‘basic good’, and the second to religion as an ‘intense preference’. In place of these, I suggest that a third type of argument has greater prospects of success. Religious accommodation is justified on the grounds that religious conduct is a ‘derivative good’— that is, it derives its value from its being necessary for something else, namely, the integrity of the religious person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we ask whether liberal egalitarians can endorse workfare policies that require that welfare recipients should work in return for their welfare benefits. In particular, we focus on the fairness-based case for workfare, which holds that people should be responsible for their own welfare since they would otherwise impose unfair costs on others. Two versions of the fairness-based case are considered. The first defends workfare on the grounds that it would form part of an unemployment insurance scheme that individuals would endorse under certain hypothetical conditions that are salient for the purposes of determining just public policy. The second appeals to the notion of reciprocity in order to justify the requirement that people work for their benefits. We cast doubt on both of these arguments for workfare. Neither argument shows that the unconditional provision of welfare benefits is unjust; hence, the fairness case for workfare is inconclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses a proposed framework by Hillel Steiner and Jonathan Wolff to resolve disputed land claims, published in a 2004 issue of the periodical "Analysis". Suggestion of holding an auction to resolve the claim; Recommendation of measures to privilege the bidder with more money; Determination of rightful entitlement to the land to the exclusion of other people.

According to the most influential contemporary reading of John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), his main argument against religious persecution is unsuccessful. That argument holds that coercion is ineffective as a means of instilling religious beliefs in its victims. I propose a different reading of the Letter. Locke's main consideration against persecution is not the unsuccessful belief-based argument just outlined, but what I call the sincerity argument. He believes that religious coercion is irrational because it is ineffective as a means of inculcating the right intentions in people. Once this alternative argument is placed at its centre, the Letter is seen to be a more fertile source of political argument than is suggested by alternative readings. In particular, the sincerity argument gives us a powerful reason for rejecting state moral paternalism, the doctrine that the state may use coercion to make people morally virtuous. If moral virtue depends upon people having the right intentions, and if coercion is ineffective as a means of instilling the right intentions in people, then state moral paternalism is ineffective and hence irrational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]