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  • Democratic values – discriminative practices regarding to the status of the elderly
    64-76.
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    The scientific study of gerontology in Hungary has a short history. Perhaps that is why the
    meaning of gerontology is erroneously restricted to the type belonging to biology and medical
    sciences by many. The present study argues that human and social science gerontology does
    have reasons for its existence. We outline the specific areas of research done by philosophy
    and ethics in connection with the situation of the existence of people, especially that of the
    elderly and describe what their mission consists of. We analyse the history of Western
    philosophical thinking and the moral ideas and values formed by this thinking in thousands of
    years. The basic principles of modern democratic societies are constituted by these ideas:
    liberty, equality, justice, brotherhood, human dignity and human rights. In practice these
    rights are often violated, for example the elderly people are discriminated against their age,
    which violates their equality and justice as well as human dignity. Their disadvantageous
    situation is obvious in the economy, politics, culture, education and relations between
    generations. The task of ethics is the principle criticism of these practices along the Western
    values thus contribution to the formation of human conditions. The demographic crisis of the
    continent is viewed by the EU as based on modern age policy, aids, projects and classical
    Western values.