AGEING AS EQUALS: DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE IN RETIREMENT PENSIONS

Invitation à la soutenance publique de thèse de Mr Manuel DE ARAUJO E SA VALENTE ROSA
Pour l’obtention du grade de Docteur en Philosophie de l’UCLouvain

Le jury est composé de Mesdames et Messieurs les professeur.es :
Walter LESCH (UCLouvain), Président
Axel GOSSERIES (UCLouvain), Promoteur
Bruno VERBEEK (Leiden University), Co‐promoteur
Vincent VANDENBERGHE (UCLouvain), Lecteur
Anca GHEAUS (Central European University) Lectrice extérieure
Serena OLSARETTI (Pompeu Fabra University), Lectrice extérieure

Le lien de connexion sera communiqué ultérieurement
à la page suivante :
https://uclouvain.be/fr/facultes/fial/agenda‐des‐theses

Despite being increasingly available to us all, retirement pensions remain unequally distributed: between rich and
poor, young and old, men and women, and possibly different generations. As this topic receives little attention in
moral and political philosophy, the articles in this thesis aim to deliver an original account of justice in retirement
pensions along liberal egalitarian lines. The first part defends retirement pensions as a distribution of free time. It
shows that including free time in the list of goods that liberal egalitarians prioritise is plausible and avoids problems
that would otherwise arise with other candidates, most notably leisure. Retirement as free time is an essential feature
of liberal egalitarian societies by (re)distributing the means to pursue any life project, and especially valuable for the
poor who work and contribute the longest. The second part makes a case for 'libertirement', a proposal to increase the
freedom to enjoy free time across life, as a matter of justice between those who live long and those who die early.
Specifically, I propose adding reverse pensions and sabbaticals on top of old‐age retirement. Besides showing the
importance of longevity for age‐group justice, I also draw implications for distributing unconditional basic income and
income taxes across life, which I suggest may offer alternative paths to libertirement. Finally, the third part discusses
the cases of pension inequality between genders and generations, pushing us to refine our account further. I conclude
that there is often a mismatch between liberal egalitarian justice and the design of retirement schemes. The solution is
often but not always to reform these systems. Sometimes, we have reasons to revise our very own principles of justice.