Dr. Michael J.
Sandel
is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard
University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980. Two of Professor
Sandel’s books – Justice:
What’s The Right Thing To Do? & What
Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets – should be required
reading for every America today (click
here for links to them). Below is the definition of “virtue”
followed by an excerpt from his book on justice.
virtue: from vertu
(c. 1200); moral life and
conduct; a particular moral excellence;[i] conformity of one's
life and conduct to moral and ethical principles.[ii]
Professor Sandel:
The great questions of political
philosophy are:
Does a just
society seek to promote the virtue of its citizens? Or should law be neutral
toward competing conceptions of virtue, so that citizens can be free to choose
for themselves the best way to live?
According to the textbook account, this
question divides ancient and modern political thought. In one important
respect, the textbook is right. Aristotle
teaches that justice means giving people what they deserve. And in order to
determine who deserves what, we have to determine what virtues are worthy of
honor and reward. Aristotle maintains that we can’t figure out what a just
constitution is without first reflecting on the most desirable way of life. For
him, law can’t be neutral on questions of the good life.
By contrast, modern political
philosophers – from Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century to John Rawls in
the twentieth century – argue that the principles
of justice that define our rights should not rest on any particular conception
of virtue, or of the best way to live. Instead, a just society respects each person’s freedom to choose his or her own
conception of the good life.
So you might say that ancient theories
of justice starts with virtue, while modern theories start with freedom . . . But
it’s worth noticing at the outset that this contrast can mislead.
For if we turn our gaze to the arguments
about justice that animate contemporary politics – not among philosophers, but
among ordinary men and women – we find a more complicated picture.
It’s true that
most of our arguments are about promoting prosperity and respecting individual
freedom, at least on the surface. But underlying these arguments, and sometimes
contending with them, we can often glimpse another set of convictions – about what
virtues are worthy of honor and reward, and what way of life a good society
should promote.
Devoted though we are to prosperity and
freedom, we can’t quite shake off the judgmental strand of justice. The
conviction that justice involves virtue as well as choice runs deep. Thinking about justice seems inescapably to
engage us in thinking about the best way to live.[iii]
In
order to have a just society, individuals must consciously choose and share core
values about the best way to live and hold a common standard that is used to
judge the actions of all members of the society equally. This is not the case
with Americans today.
[iii] Justice:
What’s the Right Thing To Do?
By Michael J. Sandel © 2009; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY; pp. 9-10.
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