Justice What Is the Right Thing to Do Review

April 21, 2022 Post a Comment

Justice is a expect at major political philosophies from the greats, written past an American political philosopher and government professor at Harvard. He explains the views of Aristotle, Kant and Rawls in relation to problems dealt with in America today such as abortion, inequality, restitution, and affirmative action. Naturally, he injects his own philosophies and offers critiques of his predecessors. Farrar, Straus and Giroux | January, 2009 | Paperback | 320 pp

I'm non an experienced reader when it comes to philosophy or soapbox on political and societal constructs. I was a bit worried that this book would be way over my head. Surprisingly, I constitute it to be easy to read and understand. Michael J. Sandel truly is a professor at heart. He is a teacher, and through this book – he teaches the layman on the swell philosophies that take been debated for hundreds of years using examples nosotros can hands understand. I notice myself a footling smarter this week.

In Justice, Sandel discusses utilitarianism, libertarianism, and other forms of government constructs in the pursuit of "the good life". One of the big questions discussed is how do we mandate morality? What is the right affair to practice and tin nosotros legislate virtue? Who decides what is right and what is wrong? These are concepts that utilitarianism and libertarianism endeavour to handle. In utilitarianism, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and in libertarianism, the freedom of the private is essential. But how do nosotros come together, with opposing viewpoints, to create a social contract?

I enjoyed the philosopher Rawles' proposal of a truly fair social contract. It was definitely food for idea:

"Suppose that when we gather to cull the principles, we don't know where we will wind up in society. Imagine that we cull behind a "veil of ignorance" that temporarily prevents us from knowing anything about who in particular we are. We don't know our form or gender, our race or ethnicity, our political opinions or religious convictions. Nor do nosotros know our advantages or disadvantages – whether nosotros are healthy or frail, highly educated or a high-school dropout, born to a supportive family or a broken one. If no i knew any of these things, we would cull, in issue, from an original position of equality. Since no one would accept a superior bargaining position, the principles we would agree to would be merely."

Although this is an impossible feat in a literal sense, it'south a good tool to use when mentally debating the pros and cons of sensitive issues upwards for a vote.

Many extremely polarized bug were discussed such as the legitimacy of affirmative activity and the bolstering of diverseness in colleges. He included the famous court case of a white woman rejected from law schoolhouse where many minorities with lower scores had been accepted. In an try to gain more than African Americans, many universities and colleges, including this Texas college involved, dramatically lowered qualifying standards just for African Americans. Is that fair? Is it fair to set standards based on race? He makes an interesting case for affirmative activity with points I've never heard, such as the beingness of many more factors pointing to "potential" other than test scores.

Equally many agree, and testament to the social contract above, it shouldn't affair what your gender, race, ethnicity, creed, nationality, and sexual orientation is: nosotros should all be afforded the same amount of respect and right to happiness. But I find the author backpedaling when it comes to reparations and national/country apologies. He seems to say that it does indeed affair where you are born, or to whom, in this case. He calls this the obligation of solidarity, or membership.

"Different natural choices, obligations of solidarity are item, not universal; they involve moral responsibilities we owe, non to rational beings as such, just to those with whom nosotros share a certain history. But unlike voluntary obligations, they exercise not depend on an act of consent."

In this case, the author is discussing apologies for the wrongs of our ancestors. For instance, should a white German today repent for the murders of the Jews his ancestors may or may non have been involved in? Should the United States offer restitution to the African American community for the hundreds of years of enslavement? He'southward not actually talking about the nations or states every bit a whole, but the individual. In this instance, he's saying that although nosotros can't assistance what body nosotros're built-in into, nosotros don't accept the liberty to make upwards our ain minds on this issue because we owe certain obligations to our "membership". This makes no sense to me. I'g not saying that I hold or disagree with the issue, but I'm confused with the fact that he seems to twist concepts to fit his calendar. It doesn't thing to whom and where nosotros are born – except, apparently, in this example. For case, if I had been born to a family nether ISIS rule, does that mean I'k obligated to accept up their fight? Certainly not.

Justice is an enlightening read that volition make you ponder the very meaning of democracy and how information technology can always be improved upon.

Justice: What'south the Right Affair to Do?
by Michael J. Sandel

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?