In his answer to question 2275 (from Sep 7th 2008), Thomas Pogge wrote: “Most political leaders do not act well, morally, and in most cases this is because they are not moral persons, not serious about morality. To be serious about morality, one must try to integrate one’s considered moral judgments through more general moral principles into a coherent account of morally acceptable conduct; one must work out what this unified system of beliefs and commitments implies for one’s own life; and one must make a serious effort to honour these implications in one’s own conduct and judgments. Those who are not serious about morality typically do not act well, morally...” I am very interested in the notion of ‘moral seriousness’, and would be interested to know what the other panelists think about the nature of ‘being morally serious’, as opposed to that of merely ‘being moral’ – and whether they agree with Prof Pogge’s account. I would also be grateful if you – Prof Pogge – could elaborate on your previous comment a little, explaining/illustrating what you mean by the various elements in your description. For example, what do you mean by saying that a morally serious person must have a ‘coherent *account* of morally acceptable conduct’? It sounds as though only philosophers – moral philosophers – can be morally serious, but I assume that you do not mean this... Finally, has anyone written more extensively on this concept? I would be grateful for any references. Many thanks (in particular to Prof Pogge, whose answers on this web site always strike me as very thoughtful, thorough, and... morally serious).

Are rights ranted to us by government? (Is saying that "I have a right to free speech" simply a way of saying that my government permits me to speak freely?) Or do we have rights independently of government, such that institutions like freedom of speech amount to a recognition by government of such rights?

Hi. I live in Israel. I do not wish to be recruited to the Israeli army for two main reasons. One is the preservation of my liberty (the mandatory service in the IDF is 3 years), the second is the desire to refrain from harming others. While I am not sure how to justify this principles in a general theory of "the universe", I am firmly certain that in Israel, the political situation enables me to use them in order to avoid being recruited to the IDF. However, there is a third variable that keeps nagging me - justice. If I do not serve, other people are protecting me, and there is nothing I can do to avoid it. Can you help? Suggest a line of reasoning and investigation? Sincerely, Shmuel

What makes me obligated to respect the supposed property of others? It looks to me like society apportion goods utilizing the purely selfish scheme of exchange. Some people have less ability to procure exchange than others but that doesn't make them more or less entitled to stuff than anyone else. If a person were to steal a line of credit in my name to finance a needed surgery what conceivable moral claim could I have against that person?

Is stealing money stolen from me more ethical than stealing money justly owned? If it is, and I believe that the government or the upper classes have unjustly appropriated money belonging to my working class family for generations, am I justified morally in giving false information to the IRS in order to avoid paying taxes?

Is Rawls's theory of social justice reducible to rule utilitarianism? Rawls says we should adhere to rules that rational, selfish people would create if they were behind a veil of ignorance. Such people would create rules that maximize will maximize their expected utility once they are born. This means they will create rules that will maximize the total amount utility in the world, since you can expect to enjoy more utility on average in world that has more total utility. Now, rule utilitarianism says we should adhere to rules that when followed, produce the most utility. In other words, rule utilitarianism demands accordance to the exact same rules that people behind the veil of ignorance would agree to. So is Rawls effectively a rule utilitarian?

I am often conflicted with my feelings and empathy for people who smoke. On the one hand I empathize with individuals who are addicted to smoking despite it's known deleterious effects - you can say, I for one also make harmful decisions that affect my health such as my daily coffee fix, or my lacklustre efforts to exercise. And I'm sure many are guilty of such choices that may cause harm to themselves. On the other hand, I innately support governmental actions and policies to eliminate smoking, which incidentally means I support the actions to remove an individual's freedom or choice to smoke. So I succinctly ask: is this hypocrisy excusable? Secondly, as a society, we create laws which discriminate against smokers, but essentially by taking away their freedom of choice to smoke, we are saving their lives, hence is this form of discrimination justifiable?

According to libertarians, a fair price is simply whatever a buyer and a seller can agree on. Critics of libertarianism say this enables exploitation, because a person in desperate circumstances might have to agree to a low price if she is to sell anything at all (ie. sweatshop workers). If we reject the libertarian definition of a fair price, what other metric can we use to determine whether a price is fair?

There's a logical scenario which often comes up in discussions around the question of voting. We all know the conversation... Person 1: I don't vote because my vote has no impact on the outcome of the election. Person 2: Not on it's OWN it doesn't, but if everyone thought that, no one would vote, and THEN what would happen?! Person 1: But I don't decide whether all those other people vote, I only have control of my 1 vote! My question here relates not to whether or not one should or shouldn't vote, or to the voting example alone, but rather to the logic of this situation. For this example let us assume (for the sake of the point I am interested in) that it is universally agreed that all people (including Person 1 and 2) agree that nobody voting is an outcome that everyone wishes to avoid. And also assume (despite the conversation above!) that everyone decides privately whether to vote or not, such that their decision cannot influence others decisions) Finally assume that the election involved has never been decided by a margin of less than 1000 votes. To me Person 2's argument is something like the following: There would be negative consequences of a number of people doing X, therefore no one should do X, even if any one of them taken in isolation has no impact. So I guess my question is: Is this a logical fallacy? I've tried to search for discussion of this scenario before on the web but never found anything. There's probably even a name for it! Help... Cheers Pip

In light of the recent leaking of hundreds of thousands of American classified documents related to the Afghan and Iraq wars by Wikileaks, I have been considering the issue of freedom of information, particularly the right of governments to withhold information from the public. While in some cases such secrecy is easily understandable (releasing the names and homes of Afghan informants, for example, would make the informants useless to the military while simultaneously endangering the lives of the selfsane informants and their families), there are other cases where I cannot understand how the government can morally justify withholding information from the public (for example, the notion that the American military was paying Afghan radio stations to run positive stories about occupation forces). Other cases, pertaining to brutalities committed by enemy forces, seem even less easy to hide away. So my question is, insofar as releasing the information doesn't directly endanger lives, does the government have the right to hide important information pertaining to a war being funded by taxpayer dollars from those same taxpayers? Is there an argument to be made that selective disclosure, rather than full disclosure, is a form of propaganda?