ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the practical and philosophical problem of distributive justice between young and older members of society. It discusses what is clearly the best theory of intergenerational distributive justice: Norman Daniels’ Prudential Lifespan Account. The account of age-justice developed by Daniels in his 1988 work is in many ways a continuation of the theory developed in his earlier book, Just Health Care , but represents a significant development and extension of this earlier view. Daniels begins by reframing the problem of justice between young and old. The conflict between these groups, he argues, is in some ways illusory. Daniels extends the Rawlsian argument to cover distribution over time within a life, but this requires the imposition of a different kind of constraint: those who choose principles from behind the veil of ignorance must not know their present age. Daniels considers his argument for the veil of ignorance to be substantively different from that of J. Rawls.
