Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Michael Sandel's discussion of Justice begins and ends with what he believes are the three main views on what Justice is or rather what it should promote: the maximum good to the largest possible number of people, individual freedom or encourage the collective virtues and the development of harmonious and enlightened communities (who wouldn't?)?.

Sandel's discussion, based on a popular course he teaches at Harvard, mixes a pretty good dose of 'history of political philosophy' with an interesting selection of hypothetical and real life 'cases', meant to stimulate thinking and understanding of the difficulties one faces when one's mission is to distribute 'justice'.

Is affirmative action justified as a criterion for college admission? Are the handicapped entitled to jobs their handicaps prevent them from performing well? Are abortions 'murder' or an expression of free choice? Should the State get out of the 'marriage' business altogether? Is it okay to kill and eat a sick boy about to die anyway if that would save the lives of three men? These are some of the dilemmas Sandel presents his students. And, for context - or is this the true purpose of the course? - he presents a summary of what he considers to be some of the more prominent thinking on the matters of morality and justice: the Utilitarians, Kant, Aristotle, John Rawls.

The journey ends with an attempt to answer the initial question: what is Justice for? And, now, that we better understand the main arguments and their proponents and we saw how they applied in 'real life', Sandel is ready to reveal his preference. He rejects Justice as a means to maximize the collective welfare because there's no way to accurately measure happiness and because not everything that gives us pleasure is worth pursuing or even 'good'. He dismisses the libertarian view of Justice as defender of our freedoms and individual rights because we are a society, not isolated individuals and because there are moral standards that are imposed by society on us. He supports a Justice that promotes a community where Virtue is celebrated, where civilized debate is possible, where good people and good deeds are recognized, and honor rewarded. Who wouldn't?

I found the history part of the course to be the most interesting. The author's deep understanding of the philosophers and thinkers he covers gives him the ability to present them to the students in a manner that's succinct and interesting without missing the essence. His presentation of Kant and Aristotle are among the best 'introductions' I've heard or read anywhere. While I respect the author's choice of what to cover and what not to, I feel that there were too many missing views if this was meant to be a brief history of moral thinking and political philosophy. There was nothing on the revolutionary, especially Marxist notions of class struggle and the class nature of morality. Nothing or very little on Religion and its views on morality and its role in enforcing it and dispensing Justice. Nothing on anything or anyone outside of what we usually call 'the Western world'. Were/are there any moral thinkers or political philosophers in China? India? I can think of a few. Nothing on nationalism, feminism or ethnocentrism and the way they view Justice.

The cases presented were by and large interesting even though, most of them being recent 'real-life' issues decided and settled by the courts or legislatures, the outcome was not a surprise and some of the arguments should be familiar. Almost with no exception, Sandel appears to be supporting the establishment's view, agreeing with the way all settled cases were settled and disagreeing with those who opposed the settlement and staying neutral and presenting 'both sides' on some issues not yet settled - abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cell research.

The course ends with the author's expressing a preference for a view of Justice as promoter and perhaps enforcer of the good, virtuous and communal life where the rich are happily sharing their bounty with the less fortunate who, far from resenting them, stay engaged in a civil, open and never-violent debate and dialogue on the good life and how to make it even better. If it sounds as an over-simplification it's probably because it is. We receive very few hints on how we can move from our current litigious, ethnocentric, highly income-polarized, over-materialistic, voluntarily segregated society to the ideal Polis that Plato, Aristotle and, with some adjustments, Sandel dream of.

I found this lecture worth listening to. Since this is only an abbreviation of the original book, it's possible that some of the aspects I found lacking in the audio version may not be so in the book but I am only reviewing the audio. I secretly wished that the professor jumped a little farther out of the academic and establishment-based thinking box and made the discussion a lot more challenging but it's possible that he decided to stay non-controversial, this being only an introductory course. My reservations notwithstanding, I would recommend this 5-CD audio book to anyone who has a few hours available for a little bit of intellectual workout. It's guaranteed not to hurt and it may help here and there.

Michael Sandel is a political philosopher, Harvard professor and perhaps National Treasure. His concern is achieving a just society and introducing notions about virtue and moral reflection into political debates. His philosophy lectures merited a 12-part TV series on PBS, but something quite serious seems to be in the works.

Forget about the tedium of philosophy classes - memorizing arguments of great philosophers and reproducing them in exams. This is different. If Sandel continues to gain access to the country through the national media, he might do for us what Socrates did for the ancient Greeks. He might succeed in making moral reflection a public endeavor, not a solitary activity. To him, a philosopher can be an interlocutor for the people. He and his students (disciples?) might shame our politicians into doing the right thing more often.

Justice, read by the author, starts out in a friendly manner with its first case being the price gouging for necessities in the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie. At the time, newspapers were filled with editorials on how price gauging is not wrong since there's no "just price" and supply and demand should be allowed free reign. Yet buyers in emergencies are under duress and thus not truly free. That's why we feel a sense of outrage. We learn that we share principles tracing back to famous dead philosophers.

By the middle of this audiobook, Sandel cuts close to the bone and you can see now why politicians would like to confine him to the lecture hall. He shows us that justice is inescapably judgmental and that today's political arguments are about anything but virtue. He wants philosophy to be used on economics, not just on matters of abortion and gay marriage. Sandel demonstrates that the growing inequality in the U.S. undermines the solidarity that a democracy requires.

Sandel points to the hollowing out of the public realm on which a democratic society depends. As public services decline and decline, as we let our common spaces for all but wealthy Americans deteriorate, we undermine our shared democratic citizenship.

Common spaces accessible by our democracy include public transportation, parks, schools, hospitals and health clinics, libraries, the news media and more. Much of the rest of public life has become overly market-based. We privatize prisons and contemplate a system of monetary rewards for teachers whose students achieve higher scores on state assessments. We've allowed a terrific gap in military service with a smaller percentage of our public officials having children in the military and serving in the wars than ever before. We load heavy burdens onto families of our troops without mercy. We gave tax cuts to the rich in time of war and were advised to go shopping. In all this, Sandel explains the schools of philosophical thought that provided the principles we adopted.

Sandel contrasts ancient theories of justice, concerned with virtue, with modern theories concerned with freedom. Yet we share beliefs about virtue. We just don't apply them to economics and politics as he advises. Our society has deep currents of moral convictions. Many of us were appalled that those on Wall Street didn't take responsibility or show some contrition for their actions that caused so much pain to Main Street. [...] These are issues that Sandel discusses. While popular with students, he's a scourge to those vested in the status quo.

There has been much discussion lately about what science can tell us about ethics, much of it frankly misguided or downright bizarre. Science is indeed informing us on how we evolved a sense of right and wrong, and it is beginning to elucidate how the brain works when we make moral judgments (or fail to do so). As interesting as this is, it says nothing about ethical questions per se, no more than understanding the evolution and neurological bases of mathematical thinking tells us whether Fermat's theorem is correct or not. You will not find much science in Michael Sandel's book, but it will give you endless food for thought to deepen your understanding of ethics. The book covers all the major philosophical approaches to ethical theory, from deontology to consequentialism, from libertarianism to virtue ethics. While the author (like myself) favors a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, he provides an accessible yet sophisticated discussion of all approaches. Moreover, this isn't just theoretical philosophy. The book has a very applied bent (and no, applied philosophy is not an oxymoron), as each discussion is introduced by an actual example of a moral conundrum taken from everyday life or from well known cases in the news. We learn, for instance, that to make sense of disputes about the essence of cheerleading, or playing golf with the aid of a cart, one needs to examine Aristotle's concept of virtue and what sort of polity we wish our society to be (even the Supreme Court got into it!). In the book you will find insightful discussions of affirmative action and abortion, for instance, which may actually change your mind about those issues, or at the very least give you a more sophisticated understanding of the other side and why their position cannot be cavalierly dismissed. Philosophy at its best is about critical reflection on complex issues, and this book is a superb example of how it is done. If you will read only one book on this subject for a while, Sandel's ought to be the one.