You are right that there are very high levels of hypocrisy in the US: our actual behavior often fails miserably to cohere with our announced values. But you should also recognize that some of the problems you mention are extremely intractible and may be extremely difficult to remedy. Have we made progress on these issues? I think we have, but I also think that the progress comes in fits and starts and also sometimes moves backward before progressing again. As for our tolerance for the gaps between our professed values and our actual practice, I think lots of factors come into play. One such factor is the degree to which we are willing, ready, or even able to make progress to eliminate the gaps a primary priority. Notice that all of us may value something, but not value it enough to set other priorities aside in order to make progress on this particular thing. The point is that people have limited resources (in time, money, energy) to "spend" on improvement in all of the areas that need...

Depends on your view of things, obviously. If you are committed to the view that all forms of coercion are immoral, then this would be the result. But I don't know why anyone would think that. I (justifiably) exercise forms of coercion over my children, because there is simply no responsible way to raise children otherwise. I would also be justified to exercise coercion against anyone who try to invade my home or injure a member of my family. Again, the alternative is considerably worse. Governments exercise coersion alright, but that does not by itself merit either approval or disapproval. The questions arise when we ask why they do so, how they do so, and to what extent do they do so, and at what costs to other valuable elements of social and political life.

This kind of objection often comes up, but I think is based upon a misunderstanding of what it means to be a "peer" in the required (legal) sense. One is my "peer" if one is a fellow citizen with all associated rights and responsibilities. That person doesn't have to be my equal in strength, or intelligence, or at basketball--he or she simply has to be my equal as a citizen . If their vote counts as much as mine, they're my peer. In his Republic , Plato said (with evident contempt) that democracy was something like government by "bald-headed tinkers." (I resemble that!) But at the heart of democratic theory is the idea that all people are "created equal," by which the theorist cannot sensibly mean "equal in all things." The point is that we are all, or at least should be all, regarded as politically and legally equal. Other political theories--including especially Plato's--obviously reject this idea. Plato especially thought that political decisions--just like all medical...

The world would be better without some governments, I think! Thomas Hobbes once famously remarked that human beings attempting to live outside the boundaries of goverment would live lives that were "nasty, poor, brutish, and short." I'm afraid that actually looking at places in the world where the local governments are extremely weak or ineffective confirms Hobbes's point. Even if such places are perhaps (and only sometimes) less of a menace to other countries than they might be with a bad (corrupt, or aggressive) government, it seems implausible to say that such places are better without any government than they would be if they had a good government. In most cases, even a bad government is better than no government at all--though there are limits as to how bad a government can get before it ends up being worse for the people living there than no government at all. But where we find extremely weak and ineffective governments in the world, we also always find massive human suffering. ...

I agree with everything Thomas Pogge has said in his reply, but also think that one assumption of your question needs to be questioned. Consider the following example: It is my night to cook dinner, but I have forgotten to buy an ingredient. I ask my wife to run down to the store to purchase it, but as I do so, it occurs to me (what is obviously true) that driving a car puts one at risk for injury or death. Now, I think there is an important moral distinction to be made between asking my wife to drive to the store precisely because of the risks I know she will face in driving, and asking her to drive to the store (despite the risks) to purchase an ingredient necessary for the dinner I (or we) have planned. Since I do not believe that it is the intent of the law, as it were, to put inmates at greatly higher risks of victimization by beating, rape, or murder (note that none of these are legally mandated, and all are legally proscribed and are often legally punished, even when they occur in...

Winston Churchill once claimed that "democracy is the worst form of government...except all the others that have been tried." On the other hand, he also once said, "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." There is wisdom in both of his quotes, I think. One problem with you (and others like you) refusing to vote is that others who have no advantage over you of any relevant kind, in terms of applicable expertise, will vote, and so you allow their ignorance to determine how you will be governed. That's Churchill's "best argument against democracy." On the other side of his musings on democracy, it remains true that--for all its flaws--democracy (even when ignorant "average voters" determine the outcomes of elections) remains the best of all of the actual ways human beings have actually tried to govern and be governed. So by opting out, you end up making the process less democratic than it would be with full participation-...

In the Republic , Plato argues that there should be a ruling elite consisting entirely of philosophers. He never mentions that there must only be 7 of these, and I think it would also count as a serious misunderstanding (one often made in the scholarly literature, however) to say that these philosophers had to be "altruistic"; rather, they needed to understand well what is in everyone's interest, including their own, and they would have to (correctly) understand their own interests as including the interests of those with whom they lived, and upon whom they depended for goods and services. Plato was certainly no fan of democracy, as a form of government, and so he would not be much impressed with modern forms of government that were democractic by nature. He was also not at all in favor of oligarchy, or rule by the wealthiest citizens--which, I think it is fair to say, is how many present "democracies" end up. Plato counted tyranny as the worst possible form of government, moreover,...

DikaiosunE (with an eta, which is why I used the upper case for the "E") is closer to our word "justice." DikE is really a broader term, which could mean simply "custom," or "the normal way of things," "or what is fitting (or suitable)." The word also applies to legal judgments and enacted laws.

I think you are right to say that the political system of the United States considerably privileges certain kinds of people (wealthy religious white men especially). But it seems to me that a basic feature of representative democracy will always be that candidates will represent the priorities of the electorate. I see no reason at all to think that the electorate of the United States highly values "amazing brilliance" or even basic grammar!

I am not sure whether ownership is the right way to frame this question. It seems that it might be more perspicuous to think of the question in terms, perhaps, of duties we owe to one another, in terms of respect for other cultures (and others' cultures), or of virtue considerations such as being respectful of others. From these points of view, I think answers are easier to reach: It certainly seems like a kind of violation of a duty to respect others (for example, as an application of one of the ways Kant formulates what he calls the categorical imperative, which mandates treating others as ends only, and never as means), and also seems like the vice of disrespect for others to violate rituals in this way. Of course, it might also be more complicated, depending upon what motives apply to the apropriation (commencial? for the purposes of ridicule? out of a sense of shared reverence?).