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• Democratic values – discriminative practices regarding to the status of the elderly

  64-76.

  J. Hell

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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.