Justice, Symmetry, and Voting Rights Ceilings

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20143685
AutoresAlexandru Volacu (0000-0003-2957-6620, Faculty of Business and Administration University of Bucharest Romania, autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume87
Fascículo3
Páginas643-658
Data de publicação2021-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTheoria (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0040-5825 • E-ISSN: 1755-2567
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/theo.12306
OpenAlexW3129549680
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas31

In this article I aim to offer a first critical assessment of the most prominent arguments in favour of restricting the voting rights of senior citizens. The first argument discussed, most thoroughly articulated by van Parijs, maintains that intergenerational justice would be improved under schemes which restrict the voting rights of senior citizens, thereby diminishing their overall electoral weight. The second argument, reconstructed from Lau's defence of child enfranchisement, maintains that the cognitive decline associated with the process of aging should lead us to treat children and senior citizens identically in respect to electoral rights; thus, if we agree that children should not have the right to vote, consistency dictates that senior citizens should be disenfranchised as well. I respond to these arguments with several objections, arguing that the former relies on a number of faulty empirical premises and has deeply unattractive implications for enfranchisement once consistently applied, and that the latter fails to make empirically salient distinctions between children and senior citizens when it comes to the political domain

Argument (complex analysis) · Consistency (knowledge bases) · Economic Justice · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Voting · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Policy and Reform Studies