Lessons from Michael Sandel

Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel has captivated a global audience with his thought-provoking explorations of justice, morality, and the common good. His writings and lectures challenge us to examine the ethical dimensions of our everyday lives and the societies we inhabit.

On Justice and Morality

At the core of Sandel's philosophy is a call for a more robust public discourse on moral and ethical questions. He argues against a purely utilitarian or market-driven approach to justice, advocating instead for a framework that considers virtues and the common good.

"The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why." [1][2]
"To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions." [1][3]
"Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things. It is also about the right way to value things." [4][5]
"A philosophy untouched by the shadows on the wall can only yield a sterile utopia." [4][5]
"Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'." [4][6]
"The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be." [6][7]
"To achieve a just society we have to reason together about the meaning of the good life, and to create a public culture hospitable to the disagreements that will inevitably arise." [5]
"First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life." [3][4]
"Debates about justice and rights are often, unavoidably, debates about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honor and reward." [4][5]
"Whenever my behavior is biologically determined or socially conditioned, it is not truly free. To act freely, according to Kant, is to act autonomously. And to act autonomously is to act according to a law I give myself—not according to the dictates of nature or social convention." [4][5]

On the Limits of Markets

Sandel is a prominent critic of what he calls a "market society," where market values infiltrate every aspect of human life. He contends that not all goods can be bought and sold without corrupting their intrinsic meaning.

"The most fateful change that unfolded during the past three decades was not an increase in greed. It was the expansion of markets, and of market values, into spheres of life where they don't belong." [6][7]
"A market economy is a tool—a valuable and effective tool—for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavour. It's a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market." [6][7]
"Markets are not innocent. [1] Markets leave their mark. Sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket values worth caring about."
" [8]In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means. The more money can buy, the more affluence (or the lack of it) matters." [9]
"Altruism, generosity, solidarity and civic spirit are not like commodities that are depleted with use. They are more like muscles that develop and grow stronger with exercise." [9][10]
"We drifted from having a market economy to being a market society." [9]
"The reach of markets, and market-oriented thinking, into aspects of life traditionally governed by nonmarket norms is one of the most significant developments of our time." [8]
"We need a public debate about what it means to keep markets in their place. To have this debate, we need to think through the moral limits of markets." [8]
"If you pay a child a dollar to read a book, as some schools have tried, you not only create an expectation that reading makes you money, you also run the risk of depriving the child for ever of the value of it." [1]
"Hiring foreign mercenaries to fight our wars might spare the lives of our citizens but corrupt the meaning of citizenship." [8]

On the Tyranny of Merit

In The Tyranny of Merit, Sandel argues that the meritocratic ideal, while seemingly fair, has become a source of hubris for the successful and demoralization for those left behind, eroding social solidarity.

"The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is a justification of inequality." [4]
"For the more we think of ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the harder it is to learn gratitude and humility. And without these sentiments, it is hard to care for the common good." [4][11]
"A lively sense of the contingency of our lot can inspire a certain humility: 'There, but for the grace of God, or the accident of birth, or the mystery of fate, go I.'" [12]
"Success is a sign of virtue. My affluence is my due. This is the dark side of the meritocratic ideal." [12][13]
"A perfect meritocracy banishes all sense of gift or grace. It diminishes our capacity to see ourselves as sharing a common fate." [11][12]
"The tyranny of merit arises from more than the rhetoric of rising. It consists in a cluster of attitudes and circumstances that, taken together, have made meritocracy toxic.” [14]
"If meritocracy is an aspiration, those who fall short can always blame the system; but if meritocracy is a fact, those who fall short are invited to blame themselves.” [11]
"Being good at making money measures neither our merit nor the value of our contribution." [4]
"The elites who governed the United States from 1940 to 1980 were far more successful." [12] This quote points to a critique of modern meritocratic elites' governance.
"Any hope of renewing our moral and civic life depends on understanding how, over the past four decades, our social bonds and respect for one another came unraveled.” [11]

On Democracy and the Common Good

Sandel emphasizes the importance of civic engagement and a shared public life for a functioning democracy. He believes that democracy requires citizens to deliberate together about fundamental moral questions.

"Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life." [1][6]
"What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life." [1][7]
"The problem with our politics is not too much moral argument but too little. Our politics is overheated because it is mostly vacant, empty of moral and spiritual content." [9]
"A better way to mutual respect is to engage directly with the moral convictions citizens bring to public life, rather than to require that people leave their deepest moral convictions outside politics before they enter." [6]
"As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the state is not far from its fall." [4][9]
"There's no necessary connection between maximizing social utility or economic wealth and creating a flourishing democracy." [3][6]
"We need to think of ourselves as citizens, not just consumers." [15]
"The responsibility of political philosophy that tries to engage with practice is to be clear, or at least accessible." [1]
"I don't think it is possible or even desirable to try to be neutral towards the competing moral convictions that citizens bring to public life." [16]
"I have argued for a greater emphasis on citizenship, civic virtues and the common good." [16]

On Philosophy and Public Life

Sandel's work itself is a testament to his belief in "public philosophy"—the idea that philosophical inquiry should engage with the pressing questions of our time in a way that is accessible to a broad audience.

"Philosophy is a distancing, if not debilitating, activity." [4] This quote is often used by Sandel to introduce the risks and rewards of philosophical reflection.
"Philosophy estranges us, not by providing us with new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing." [4]
"Political philosophy from its very origins has always been connected with the city, with politics, with the real world." [17]
"I find it difficult to separate philosophy altogether from narrative... it's difficult, if not impossible, to elucidate those concepts without recourse to narrative, to stories, to illustrative examples." [17]
"Sandel's overriding aim as a philosopher is to bring morality back into political debate." [18]
"It's ultimately the purpose of education to cultivate the love of learning for its own sake." [6]
"Parenthood is a school for humility. We can't choose the precise traits of our children, and that is morally important." [7]
"Religion gives a framework for moral enquiry in young minds and points us to questions beyond the material." [1]
"My main quarrel with liberalism is not that liberalism places great emphasis on individual rights... The issue is whether it is possible to define and justify our rights without taking a stand on the moral and even sometimes religious convictions that citizens bring to public life." [1]
"The only way to create a flourishing democracy is to find ways to reason together about the big questions, including hard questions about justice and the common good." [3][6]

Sources and Further Reading:

Learn more:

Lessons from Michael Sandel

On Justice and Morality

On the Limits of Markets

On the Tyranny of Merit

On Democracy and the Common Good

On Philosophy and Public Life

Written by Antoine Buteau

Lessons from Lisa Feldman Barrett

Lessons from Grant Sanderson