Michael Sandel Quotes

United States, Philosopher
March 5, 1953

Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher. He is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the "most influential foreign figure of the year" (China Newsweek). He is also known for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982).

To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions.

Michael Sandel
- Justice
- Spiritual
- Virtue
Whether you're a libertarian liberal or a more egalitarian liberal, the idea is that justice means being non-judgmental with respect to the preferences people bring to public life.

Michael Sandel
- People
- Ideas
- Libertarian

Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'.

Michael Sandel
- Knowledge
- Self
- Innocence
In natural pregnancy, more than half of fertilized eggs fail to implant or are otherwise lost. Should we regard that as an instance of infant mortality? And if so, why are we not mounting ambitious public health campaigns to try to save and rescue all of the fertilized eggs that are lost in natural pregnancy? We would need a public health campaign of massive proportions if there really were over a fifty percent rate of infant mortality.

Michael Sandel
- Natural
- Public
- Failing
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.

Michael Sandel
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.

Michael Sandel
- Economy
- Social
- Aspect
Markets are useful instruments for organizing productive activity. But unless we want to let the market rewrite the norms that govern social institutions, we need a public debate about the moral limits of markets.

Michael Sandel
- Social
- Activity
- Debate
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.

Michael Sandel

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.

Michael Sandel
I think too often in our society parents, who may have good impulses, overreach and try to mold and shape and direct their child.

Michael Sandel
- Children
- Trying
- Parent
The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be

Michael Sandel
- Way
- Determine
- Ought