Justice

Live Socratic moral philosophy at its sharpest: Sandel extracts conflicting consequentialist and Kantian intuitions directly from student debate before naming a single philosopher.

Tests Bentham's utilitarian calculus against real corporate cost-benefit memos (Ford Pinto, Philip Morris) and Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures.

Examines Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia: if you own yourself, is redistributive taxation morally indistinguishable from forced labor?

Reads Locke's Second Treatise critically: how mixing labor creates private property before government, the Lockean proviso, and tacit consent.

Professor Michael Sandel examines the ethical implications of market mechanisms in allocating civic duties, using historical conscription policies and contemporary surrogacy contracts as case studies. The lecture delves into utilitarian and libertarian perspectives on obligations of citizenship and the commodification of human life.

One of the clearest introductions to Kantian ethics ever filmed: autonomy vs. heteronomy, acting from duty vs. inclination, and treating humanity never merely as a means.

Professor Michael Sandel examines Immanuel Kant's stringent moral theory regarding lying, contrasting it with the ethics of misleading truths. The lecture then introduces John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness, exploring the hypothetical social contract and the 'veil of ignorance' as mechanisms for establishing equitable principles.

This lecture systematically examines John Rawls's theory of distributive justice, particularly his argument that natural talents and social circumstances are 'morally arbitrary' and thus cannot justify radical inequalities. Professor Sandel explores Rawls's veil of ignorance thought experiment and its implications for establishing principles of a fair societal start.

This lecture examines affirmative action through the 1996 Cheryl Hopwood court case, debating whether race should be considered to correct educational inequalities or compensate for historical injustices. Students discuss the ethical merits and challenges of such policies.

This lecture explores Aristotle's teleological view that politics cultivates virtue, illustrating how the purpose (telos) of a community informs who deserves reward. The Casey Martin golf cart case further probes how we discern a practice's essential purpose.

This session contrasts Kant's emphasis on individual freedom and universal duties with communitarian philosophy, which posits obligations of membership, solidarity, and loyalty not solely based on consent. It discusses inherited identities and unchosen responsibilities.

This lecture navigates the complex relationship between justice principles and varying conceptions of the good life, focusing on the debate over same-sex marriage. It questions whether reasoning about the good is essential for determining rights.

Michael Sandel leads a public debate examining the ethical dimensions of healthcare policy and social welfare, interrogating the philosophical underpinnings of the American Dream within a framework of distributive justice.