Thinking Citizen Blog — The Ethics And Biology of Aging — Senator Ed Markey, Justice Ginsburg, Donald Trump, Harvard Professors?
Thinking Citizen Blog: Thursday is Health, Health Care, and Global Health Policy Day
Today’s Topic: The Ethics and Biology of Aging — Senator Ed Markey, Justice Ginsburg, Donald Trump, Harvard professors?
How do you feel about mandatory retirement ages? for surgeons? lawyers? for soldiers? policemen? senators? congressmen? Supreme Court justices? CEOs? high school teachers? university professors? pilots? judges?
Retirement, you could argue, is a form of suicide. “The cessation of work can impact mental well-being and cognitive function, especially for those who built their identity around their career.”
What do you know about the ethics, biology, psychology, economics, politics, and history of aging and mandatory retirement laws in the US or elsewhere that the rest of us might not but would benefit from learning?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
US DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN, SETH MOULTON, 46, SAYS SENATOR EDWARD J. MARKEY, 79, IS TOO OLD — is he right? should there be a mandatory retirement age for politicians as for judges?
1. While there is no mandatory retirement age for federal judges, “thirty-one states and the District of Colombia have a retirement age for their state court judges.”
2. “The specific age varies by state, but 70 is the most common mandatory retirement age.”
3. “As of mid-2025, approximately 120 members of the 119th U.S. Congress are 70 years of age or older.
This group is comprised of 86 members in the House of Representatives and 33 in the Senate.”
SHOULD JUSTICE GINSBURG HAVE RETIRED EARLIER? AT WHAT AGE? AND BY THE WAY SHOULD THERE BE A MINIMUM AGE FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES AS THERE ARE FOR CONGRESSMEN, SENATORS, AND PRESIDENTS?
1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 years old when she died in office. She was replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, age 48.
2. Clarence Thomas is now the oldest justice on the Supreme Court, age 77.
3. John Paul Stevens was 90 years old when he retired in 2010. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was also 90 when he retired in 1932,
NB: John Marshall, the most famous, consequential, and longest serving Supreme Court justice died in office at age 79 in 1835. When he was appointed in 1800 by lame duck President John Adams, Marshall was 45 years old. A good age? or way too young?
MANDATORY RETIREMENT FOR HARVARD PROFESSORS WAS ABOLISHED BY FEDERAL LAW IN 1994
1. 1978: The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was amended to raise the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 70 for most professions, including university faculty.”
2. 1986: Another amendment to the ADEA was passed, but it included an exemption that allowed colleges and universities to continue enforcing mandatory retirement at age 70 for tenured faculty until January 1, 1994.”
3. 1994: “This exemption expired, and a federal law permanently eliminated mandatory retirement for tenured faculty at all U.S. colleges and universities, making it illegal for Harvard and other institutions to enforce a mandatory retirement age.”
NB: So what does your ethical calculus look like? For the individual making a decision? For the institution setting a rule? for local, state, or federal government mandating retirement in one profession or another?
In 1945, the mandatory retirement age for Harvard professors was 67. Life expectancy at the time was 62 years for men and 68 for women. Today, those rates are 76 for males and 81 for females.
How, if at all, do those numbers impact your moral calculus?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/15/nation/seth-moulton-senate-ed-markey/
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/11/10/2023-faculty-trends-report/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employment_Act_of_1967
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_discrimination_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_retirement
FOOTNOTE — AI ON THE ETHICS OF EARLY RETIREMENT — have you ever queried AI on a related topic and come up with a particularly illuminating response?
1. “The ethics of mandatory retirement are debated, with arguments against focusing on age discrimination, violation of individual dignity, and loss of expertise, while arguments for highlight potential benefits like improved diversity, succession planning, and ensuring workforce freshness.”
2. “Ethically, mandatory retirement can be seen as a form of ageism that stigmatizes older workers by assuming declining competence and ignoring individual performance.”
3. ”Conversely, proponents argue it’s a way to ensure fairness for younger workers and maintain a level of performance a nd safety, especially in certain professions, though critics argue this can be based on stereotypes rather than evidence.”
NB: Any strong feelings? How would you weight each of these factors using Ben Franklin’s “moral algebra” model? What is your net?
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
Updating PDFs: 2023 — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the most interesting thing you learned in the last week related to health, health care or health care policy — the ethics, economics, politics, history….
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to health are or health care policy that the rest of us may have missed.
Or just some random health-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your mind something really important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters.
