• ethics
• social aspects

Räsänen has argued that people should be allowed to change their legal age. If someone genuinely considers that their chronological age does not correspond to their ‘biological age’ or ‘emotional age’, and doing so does not incur ‘excessive consequences’, they should be free to change the record of their age. Though Räsänen acknowledges that chronological age is unchangeable, he believes that the legal record of age (date of birth) may be changed based on certain facts about or perceptions of oneself.1

Räsänen begins by arguing that age can be grounds for severe discrimination ‘for some people whose biological and emotional age do match their chronological age’. What needs to be said about this opening gambit is enough to address the major problems with Räsänen’s argument.

To begin, the phrases ‘emotional age’ and ‘biological age’ must be treated with caution. Their function in Räsänen’s argument is equivocation with chronological age—they are considered sufficiently like chronological age to justify changing the legal record of one’s age; age, ‘emotional age’ and ‘biological age’ are just three of a kind, and any one can serve as the legal age. In fact, however, the relationship between these three is one of analogy, not equivalence. To speak of ‘emotional age’ is not really to speak  of age at all; it is a figure of speech. A child complimented on being mature for his age is credited for displaying behaviour that is typically associated with someone older—nothing more. To possess an ‘emotional age’ different from one’s age is not to have two ages. Additionally, the idea that one may modify legal records based on one’s purported emotional age raises the question of how one can quantify emotional age. Indeed, it seems that one could claim to possess almost any emotional age and attribute to it any number one wishes, and it would be impossible for someone else to verify this claim.

‘Biological age’ is also problematic; not only is it tautological (life-to-do with life) but there is surely no difference between biological life and chronological life (unless one wishes to take into account in utero life). Perhaps, what Räsänen is hinting at is a concept better named physiological age (Räsänen is aware of this phrase, using it in a footnote). In this respect, it is correct to identify a mismatch between chronological age and physiology. Despite their age, some elderly people are remarkably physiologically fit, while some younger people may be surprisingly frail. Hence, a wise geriatrician on the morning rounds will not necessarily refuse to see the middle-aged outlying patient; his physiology or morbidity may justify geriatric attention. In other words, some people, temporarily or permanently, have a physiological status typically associated with someone of a different age—but this is no more a fact about their age properly speaking than their self-assessment of their emotional age. (Additionally, it is not clear that physiological age differing from chronological age exposes anyone to unjust discrimination.) Biological/physiological age might be more concrete than ‘emotional age’, but it is not clear that it can be a sufficient reason to alter the legal record of one’s age. It is a figure of speech, not one of a range of options one may pick for one’s age.

Furthermore, the phrase ‘severe discrimination’ needs consideration. Perhaps, ‘severe’ assumes the discrimination is unjust, but it would be helpful if this had been stated because, while some discrimination is unjust, some is reasonable. The law discriminates against minors in numerous ways, for example, by preventing them from purchasing alcohol or joining the military. Someone might consider the mismatch between their self-perception and their chronological age a disadvantage. Perhaps, a physically mature and intellectually precocious 13-year-old considers the marine corps’ refusal to draft him to be to his disadvantage. Perhaps it is, but there is an obvious reason why this disadvantage is not unfair. The point is not to deny that age-based discrimination can be unfair—it most certainly can be—but to show that it is not necessarily so. The case of the aspiring young soldier shows this; it is curious that Räsänen has not included any examples of someone who might wish to increase their legal age. Perhaps, it is because it is clearer in such cases that age-based discrimination can be fair and that changing one’s legal age can confer an unfair advantage. Yet, it seems there is nothing in Räsänen’s argument to rule out raising one’s legal age purely for one’s advantage (if ‘excessive consequences’ are not incurred).

On this note, it seems that Räsänen’s suggestion that people change their legal age to overcome the adversity of age-based discrimination is perverse. Would it not be better to prevent the discrimination, rather than work around it? It would be quite unacceptable to tell someone that they cannot get a job because of their skin colour and that they should therefore consider changing it. If unjust age-based discrimination exists, changing one’s legal documents to get around it is underhanded and self-serving. But, if it is permitted, why is one also required to feel a mismatch between age and emotional age in order to game the system, as Räsänen argues? Surely, the issue is not self-perception but unjust discrimination. It does not seem that how one feels about oneself is relevant to this injustice. For example, if a start-up sought to employ only people under the age of 30 years, and one candidate for a position is 45 years old and feels every day of it, while another of the same age claims to feel 35 and changes his documentation as a result, not only will the latter candidate be playing into his employer’s ageist policy, but his mere self-perception will have allowed him to overcome the discrimination which his competitor lost out to. It seems, therefore, that Räsänen’s proposal unjustly advantages people who happen to feel such a mismatch, while leaving entirely unaddressed the underlying alleged discrimination. One wonders what possible moral relevance self-perception can have in the overcoming of age-based prejudice. Surely, everyone has the right not to be unfairly discriminated against based on age, not just those who claim that their age does not correspond to some feeling about something else. To claim otherwise, as Räsänen does, is bizarre.

Therefore, since self-perception appears irrelevant, it seems that Räsänen’s proposal boils down to the suggestion that if one’s age is the grounds for unfair discrimination, then one may escape this discrimination by changing the record of one’s legal age. This argument is profoundly problematic because, while it claims that chronological age is unchangeable, it simultaneously countenances the possibility of changing one’s date of birth based on a number obscurely derived from a figure of speech. To treat the legal record of one’s date of birth as though it can just as well relate to chronological age or some other number is a plunge into absurdity. It involves falsifying the record of one’s date of birth by accommodating the meaning of words to one’s own convenience. Some may argue that such deception is permissible for a good cause such as eluding unfair discrimination, but to deliberately deny reality and endorse deception in this way cannot be motivated by noble intention. Nihilism dressed up as social justice remains nihilism.