Juan Antonio Fernandez Manzano

Abstract

The paper presents the population ageing phenomenon in the EU-28 (I) and highlights some of the social problems associated to it (II). It analyzes how the Rawlsian theory of justice can approach the impact of societal ageing (III) by focusing on two concepts: the idea of self-respect as an essential primary good to be fairly distributed and the Aristotelian principle of motivation, which links rational life plans to the exercise of complex and meaningful capacities. It exemplifies some open practical guidelines as to what kind of political actions may be necessary for a society to guarantee the social bases of self-respect and be considered fair and it concludes (IV) by showing that Rawls’s structural view can be useful.