Balter Distinguished Lecture: Juliana Bidadanure (Stanford)

Title: Justice Across Ages
Optional sub-title: What Does it Mean to Treat Young and Old as Equals?

Abstract:
Age structures our lives and societies. It shapes social institutions, roles, and relationships, as well as how we assign obligations and entitlements within them. Each life-stage also brings its characteristic opportunities and vulnerabilities, which spawn multidimensional inequalities between young and old. How should we respond to these age-related inequalities? Are they unfair in the same way gender or racial inequalities are? Or is there something distinctive about age that mitigates ethical concern?

In her talk, Juliana Bidadanure will address these and related questions, presenting the theory of justice between age groups that she developed in her book Justice Across Ages: Treating Young and old as Equals (OUP 2021). The book advances ethical principles to guide a fair distribution of goods like jobs, healthcare, income, and political power among persons at different stages of their life. If we are ever to live in a society where people are treated as equals, she argues, we must pay vigilant attention to how age membership can alter our social standing, and we must regard with suspicion commonplace forms of age-based social hierarchy. This position carries important implications for how we should think about the value of equality, design our social and political institutions, and conduct ourselves in a range of contexts including families, workplaces, and schools.

Bio:
Juliana Bidadanure is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and, by courtesy, of Political Science, at Stanford University. She is also the Faculty Director of the Stanford Basic Income Lab. Professor Bidadanure’s work is in Political Philosophy. She has published on the topic egalitarian justice, including a recent book scrutinizing inequalities between age groups and generations (Justice Across Ages, OUP 2021). Bidadanure’s research extends into public policies – she has written on age discrimination, youth quotas, universal basic income and related policies. She is currently writing a series of papers on inegalitarian relationships.