I think part of the answer is that education can be well targeted on the children in need. By contrast, it's hard to provide food and shelter to children in ways that are not exploitable by their caretakers. So the worry is, for example, that, if we institute the mandatory provision of shelter for children, then adults who want a decent apartment will have children in order to be provided with one. In my view, this problem is often overstated. A decent health-care minimum can be targeted (and in any case adults should enjoy it as well regardless of income), and targeting for food could also be improved (e.g. by providing good food in schools and kindergartens rather than food stamps that can often be traded in for cash or commodities from which children do not benefit). So my answer to your "why" is meant as an explanation, not a justification. The shortfalls in food, shelter and health care that children suffer, in the US and in the world at large, are horrific. They should be much reduced -- and...

You agree that a person should derive some benefit from their own efforts, in the form of private property. But then property constitutes a benefit only if and insofar as one can use it in ways one values. Money is worth less, for instance, the fewer and less valued are the things one can purchase with it. One thing many people value is the option to give money to others, e.g. through bequest. By taking this option away, we would be taking away a valued benefit -- not merely from those who might otherwise inherit, but also from those who might otherwise bequeath. So there is something to be said in favor of allowing inheritance. This reason must be balanced against others, though. The institution of inheritance tends to aggravate inequality, for example. In view of such competing reasons, the kind of compromise many countries have adopted -- to allow but also substantially to tax inheritance -- seems a plausible one. A complete ban on inheritance would, in any case, be very difficult to enforce...

The answer to both questions depends on whether you look at "inputs" or "outputs". If you look at inputs, it is clear that A's achievement is more remarkable, more praiseworthy, and in this sense more significant and valuable. But we must also look at outputs, because an education system is, after all, preparing people for professional roles. Thus think of patients in need of an operation or passengers depending on a pilot's skills. For them, output matters: a better surgeon or pilot is better for them even if another made much greater efforts to reach a slightly lower level of skill. So the best justification for designing exams so that your students A and B do equally well appeal to the interests of the public in having positions filled by people likely to do well in them. Is it fair to distribute professional opportunities by achievement (output) rather than effort (input)? I think the examples of surgeon and pilot show that we have strong reasons to do this. An additional reason is that effort is...

I am sorry that I saw this question too late. My answer would be, in brief, that some people do indeed have a reason not to vote of the kind you describe: they can conclude on solid grounds that the remaining voters are no less committed and more competent to get it right. But judging from your question, I doubt very much that the reason applies to you. You seem more conscientious than most voters and you also seem more intelligent. So your abstention is not going to raise the quality of the pool. This would be even more true (not a phrase a philosopher should use!) if you had put your mind to questions at stake in the election -- questions that concern not merely the competent management of Britain, but also important moral issues: from access to medical care to military action in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (potentially) elsewhere. In this context it is worth stressing that the period before an election is also an especially auspicious one for raising important issues that politicians ought to...

There is a hidden assumption in your questions, namely that we know another, non-democratic form of government under which distant ecological threats and intergenerational injustice would be adequately tackled. In my view, this assumption is false. Any government is run by human beings, and human beings have more togain by making decisions favorable to the living than by makingdecisions favorable to future populations. But if you disagree, and know of a non-democratic form of government that would do the trick, I would like to know which this is and, more eagerly, what evidence you have for your view. For the time being, I would then look elsewhere to a solution to the very serious problems you highlight. I would think hard about reforms of the present systems of democracy to make them more likely to take the more distant future into account. How can this be done? First, we might institute an independent agency that, for any major piece of legislation, prepares a future impact assessment of it...

There are various potentially relevant differences. First, interventions abroad are often more likely to be counterproductive. The foreign government committing or condoning the human rights violations may be so powerful that the attempt to stop it will cause much more death and destruction than is now occurring. By contrast, we can bring overwhelming force to bear domestically and thereby crush even well-armed crime gangs.Second, internationally we do not have unique authority to judge and to act. We are just one of many similarly placed agents possibly able to do something. These agents (the governments of powerful states) are likely to see things differently -- e.g. may support different factions in a country that's facing a violent power struggle. For example, some potential interveners may believe that the Sri Lankan all-out assault upon the Tamil Tigers was a crime that had to be stopped (because so many civilians were also hurt and killed). Other potential interveners may believe that the assault...

What you are citing is not the principle Rawls is actually defending as his second principle of justice, it is merely a principle he considers along the way. In its canonical formulation, the second principle reads: "Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity [the opportunity principle ]; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society [the difference principle ]." With the correct text substituted, your point about the least advantaged makes more sense. Still, what Rawls is demanding for the least advantaged is really in one sense more than a safety net. The word "safety net" suggests a certain minimum, perhaps some amount sufficient to meet one's basic needs. But Rawls is demanding the highest feasible bottom position, even if this turns out to be well above the level needed for economic security. So, even if...

Yes. Clear cases are ones where the agent has strong reasons to believe that (1) the law is unjust, (2) compliance would cause substantial harm, and (3) non-compliance would neither (3a) lose much greater benefits, nor (3b) cause harm of comparable magnitude or (3c) unreasonable cost upon the agent. The Nazi period offers examples. Justice required German citizens in typical circumstances not to obey a law that mandated that they report Jews to the authorities for internment in concentration camps. This is so because German citizens knew, or could and should have known, that (1) the internment of Jews (and others) was unjust, (2) reporting a non-interned Jew to the authorities was very likely to harm this person greatly, (3a) the internment of the person reported would not bring any substantial benefit, (3b) the non-internment of the person would cause no harm comparable to the harm of internment, and (3c) not reporting a Jew was typically without risk to the agent (at least when one could plausibly...

In a society where this faith is shared and influences political decisions in the direction of peace, justice, humanity, and equal citizenship, I see no problem. Problems arise when either of these two conditions are not satisfied. Faith can lead people to do terrible things, for instance torture and murder those with different religious beliefs. No one should let his or her faith exert such an influence. Rather, when one's religion seems to require conduct that seems wrong, then one ought to re-examine one's religion. This does not mean that one should abandon one's faith, though it may come to that in some cases. Another possible outcome is a reinterpretation of one's religion (for example, many Christian now understand that their faith did not really require the Inquisition). And one may also conclude, on reflection, that one's religion was right, after all, to require the conduct in question (as when Christians in Nazi Germany came to endorse their religious duty to engage in treasonable...

Mad at whom? At yourself because you could have been at the concert at lower cost? But there was no way for you to know this: you cared about the opportunity and did what you needed to do to secure it. At the organizers? Maybe. But they have costs to cover, and it's nice of them to give away tickets that, presumably, they found they could not sell. Perhaps think of this analogy: If you buy health insurance and don't get sick, should you get mad that you paid while others, who also did not get sick, paid nothing? I think you should be grateful you didn't get sick and should not regret that you protected yourself against unforeseeable medical expenses. Likewise with the concert: You should be glad that you got to be there and should not regret that you secured yourself a place rather than leave your opportunity to chance by waiting.