Justice with Michael Sandel (Harvard Lectures)

[Drake L. Dragon]

I'm surprised any other person watched these lectures here other than I, for it was rather unpopular, when first I saw it, and I have read Michael J. Sandel's book, which I as well recommend.  Honestly, these lectures are not intended to give a person all the knowledge in the world about philosophies.  These lectures do much more.  These lectures light the skeptic fire that a lot of people have to investigate into other philosophies independently and test the predisposed notions that students have on fundamental positions, so that the students could look within themselves to see how they wanted to leave the classroom after each lecture -- to see what ideas they wanted to represent them if or when they come into work after investigating the issues with their fellow students.  President Obama, who studied at Harvard University, certainly didn't just pursue the Federal, Universal Healthcare Bill just because of the economical times.  These lectures force people to ask themselves not whether a politician is corrupt nor not corrupt, because cynicism is stagnant, exactly like it is in marital relationships.  What people need to do is move forward.  People do so by asking themselves whether a politician is right or not, not whether or not the dirty politicians are conspiring against me or not, and these lectures certainly set the students, or at least me, on that mindset to be more orderly, moral, and ethical in my views than outraged and advocating ANARCHY!!!! or all else in such manner, when I am posed with a complex, political situation, which I merely attribute to the so-called system.

[Jac3510]

I wish I had more teachers like this in school. He's engaging and manages to present extremely complex issues in an easily understandable way.

Regarding the questions in the first few videos, the reality is this: do the ends justify the means? Utilitarianism presents its case that morality is in the ends, the result can be justification. The fun thing is how you can change people's position on this depending on certain levels of interaction and severity. When the scenario went from changing tracks to pushing an overweight person, despite the fact there was functionally no difference whatsoever, the position of the majority of students changed. Why? It's simple: utilitarianism is bullshit (as Pen and Teller would say). Utilitarianism assumes a single, uniform measure of value which ignores the fact things we value can't be measured based on a single form of value. My value of human life is not necessarily the same as your value of life. Worse still, utilitarianism makes the mistake of direct democracy, introducing to a people the tyranny of the majority. Who was it that once said "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on dinner"? The minority require protections just as the majority, which is why just nations require a constitution limiting the power of the majority and of the state.

Thanks very much Reginus for posting this. You've eaten up my weekend in a very good way.  

Excellent post. I haven't seen the videos yet, but I will probably watch them all early next week as I'm very interested in ethics. I'm particularly intrigued by non-utilitarian ethics (and any non-teleological ethics, generally). Most theists either are or claim to be deontologists. I hold to virtue theory myself, but I don't know too many non-theists who hold to either of those.

If you aren't a utilitarian, Will, what do you hold to?