Once, in 1884, three English sailors and an ailing cabin boy were adrift in an open boat without food or water. The adults killed and ate the cabin boy and were later rescued. Were they guilty of murder and, if so, were there extenuating circumstances? Again, after a 2004 Florida hurricane, prices charged for roof repairs increased hugely. Was this exploitation of the already afflicted or the legitimate operation of the free market? Such difficult questions characterize this excellent and finely discriminating book.
Towards its end, Michael K. Sandel points to three traditions that have characterized moral philosophy, or the search for what is the right course of action, over the millennia. The first is the desire to increase human happiness (“maximizing utility or welfare”), the second the wish to see freedom remain untrammeled (which these days often means respecting market forces), and the third “cultivating virtue.”
“As you’ve probably guessed by now,” writes the author, “I favor a version of the third approach.”
In this, Harvard’s Professor of Government is very much out on a limb. For centuries thinkers have opted for one or both of the first two principles. It’s a long time since a major Western philosopher has expressed the wish to see governments trying to influence how people live their lives. Respecting their private convictions has been far more popular, as has trying to ensure, at least in theory, the greatest happiness of the greatest number. (Protecting the powerful may seem to many what governments actually do, but philosophers can be relied on not to openly endorse such behavior). And trying to make its citizens more virtuous smacks, as Sandel readily admits, of the religious right, and even oriental despotism.
This fine book surveys the best thinking in this area from the ancient Greeks to the present. Interspersed with these historical chapters, as well as within them, are sections dealing with contentious issues in contemporary US society — positive discrimination in access to higher education, same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration, and more.
The alert reader will detect Sandel’s preferred approach early on. One clue is the order in which he treats his historical philosophers. First comes Jeremy Bentham, then Immanuel Kant, then the American philosopher John Rawls, and finally Aristotle. Isn’t this sequence rather strange, you wonder? Why is the oldest thinker, the ancient Greek Aristotle, left till last? The answer is that Aristotle is the only one of the set who believed in the state trying to improve the moral character of its citizens, to encourage them to behave better. Sandel thus sees him as his precursor, and places him, as it were, at the top of the bill.
The most striking chapters of this fascinating book are those in which Sandel examines contemporary American issues. His chapter on positive discrimination — essentially allowing candidates from racial minorities entry to colleges ahead of their white peers with identical grades — is magnificent. He examines facets of the question you might never have thought of. Do universities really only exist to promote academic excellence? Would it be right in some circumstances to give preference on grounds of race to whites? Should colleges give places to the children of rich fathers whose donations might benefit thousands of students in the future, and so on.
Sandel very rarely comes to a hard and fast conclusion on these issues. Instead, he probes the questions from just about every angle, throwing illumination on everything he touches.
Elsewhere he dismisses points of view with barely concealed disdain. Utilitarianism — the belief that the well-being of the majority should always prevail — he sees as hopelessly inadequate. It’s the reduction of everything to statistics, he argues. You might as well say that throwing Christians to the lions was a good idea because there were more spectators getting pleasure from the spectacle than there were victims suffering pain. Yet such statistical approaches are routine today, he observes, notably in the form of cost-benefit analyses, common in both business and government.
Sandel is a great supporter of US President Barack Obama, and sees him, along with the late Robert F. Kennedy, as a major endorser of ethical values in government. Torture might in theory save some lives, but it is not what Americans ought to do. This viewpoint is very much to Sandel’s taste.
Sandel’s detailed analyses of major modern issues in the field of public ethics are far more interesting than his views on the civic virtues governments might seek to promote. Perhaps he takes what these might be for granted. Nevertheless, there are problems there, of which he is very well aware. Even so, this is a mightily readable and engrossing book, and is highly recommended.
The lectures on which Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? is largely based are available complete on Harvard University’s YouTube channel.
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