Harvard professor Michael Sandel's course on moral philosophy, Justice, has received millions of views on YouTube and became a popular resource for people to learn the ins-and-outs of modern day moral and political debates. The course was the first Harvard course open and free to the public when it was published in 2009, a traditional in-person class with Harvard College students, but televised and uploaded online so that anyone could (and still can) participate in.
Dr. Sandel takes a bird's-eye view of the major ideas of interpreting justice, posing real and hypothetical difficult moral dilemmas and questions for his students to respond to in class. He takes a refreshing and professional approach in his course, acting as the referee between debates among his students, as well as grilling every student's assertions, forcing them to really think out the pros and cons and understand their positions.
This interactive format is obviously hard to translate onto the page, but Sandel lays out the most common arguments taking place in the lecture hall into a educational journey of what happen to be the 3 main approaches to justice. They are:
Welfare
Freedom
Virtue
Summary
Welfare
The first framework of justice is the focus on welfare and its effects. This philosophy defines the concept of Utilitarianism. The main principle of utilitarianism is to strive toward the greatest happiness for the greatest number (the goal: maximize utility). Happiness as defined by utilitarians doesn't refer to the colloquial usage of the word, but a way of calculating pains and pleasures in a cost-benefit analysis. Insofar as it is philosophically (and ultimately, practically) possible, the welfare principle of justice attempts to create a common currency of value where we can make moral judgments when informed about the pros and cons - regarding utility - of taking any specific morally relevant action. Jeremy Bentham was the main developer of this idea, and of utilitarianism in general.
John Stuart Mill took Bentham's idea and ran with it. He also tries to address the main objections against utilitarianism, namely that it disrespects individual rights and that achieving the common currency of value is impossible. His rebuttal to the first objection is that respecting individual right maximizes utility in the long run. His rebuttal to the second objection is to accept the idea of "higher goods." He concedes the critique that some pleasures are, in fact, qualitatively better than others. Some pleasures may be intense, but they may also be "base and degrading," leading us to value things like the carnal spectacles which took place in the Ancient Roman Colosseum more than subjects like art.
Freedom
The second approach in deliberating about justice is that of principles couched in freedom, where we find the Libertarian philosophy.
"The libertarian rejects three types of policies and laws that modern states commonly enact:
1. No paternalism
2. No morals legislation
3. No redistribution of income/wealth"
Libertarians believe that contracts and the respect of self-ownership have the highest moral force. Valuing consenting relationships between any two parties, without the oversight of an approving third party is imperative to this philosophy. Self-ownership is the unifying aspect for any libertarian-minded individual. "Their central claim is that each of us has a fundamental right to liberty - the right to do whatever we want with the things we own, provided we respect other people's rights to do the same."
Different branches within this ethic have different levels of comfort in unilaterally applying the concept of self-ownership to its logical extremes. For example, the ardent libertarian could not object to two consenting parties participating in cannibalism (someone agrees to be eaten by a cannibal) or someone who willfully sells their organs on the market. The alleged degrading of human dignity is not an issue to the ardent libertarian, because individuals have freely chosen to participate in such an action. If the two parties come to agreement on a contract, it is not within the right of the State, nor anyone else to tell them that their contract is invalid or immoral, since that would be a blatant affront on an individual's right to liberty and self-ownership. It seems that the saying "don't tread on me" can sum up the essence of libertarianism in a catchy phrase.
I should probably note that the libertarian obviously does not believe in the nonexistence of morality, where no moral actions can be judged, but rather that where there is no non-consenting individual affected by the decision of two parties, there is no room for questioning the fairness of a mutually agreed-upon contract.
Objections toward libertarianism:
Taxation is not as bad as slavery
The poor need the money more
Successful people don't play alone: they owe a debt to those who helped them get to where they are
People aren't taxed without their consent: they have a voice in voting for the tax laws that govern them
Successful people are lucky to live in a society that values their abilities
In addition to the examples of cannibalism and organ selling above, Dr. Sandel includes other moral dilemmas to test the force of libertarian political theory. Some of those include military service (conscription or volunteer based membership), surrogate motherhood (bearing a baby for a couple willing to pay you for your fertility), and affirmative action. All of these debates serve to test the moral limits of markets and to ask the following question that libertarians must ultimately battle with: "Is it fair, what they agreed to?"
Virtue
The last theory of justice identified by Professor Sandel is the idea of virtue, where distributive justice means giving everyone what they deserve, and by doing so reward and honor certain virtues. This line of logic is called teleological reasoning, and it was used in Aristotle's moral philosophy. Teleological reasoning is to reason from the purpose of a good to identify the proper allocation of that good. He believes that justice is teleological and that it is honorific: to say something is just is to say it caters to the individual's nature. Justice cannot be neutral, according to him, with respect to questions about the good life. Questions of fairness and rights are inextricably linked to those of honor, virtue, and moral desert (what someone morally deserves).
To say that the distribution of income is just or unjust in the US, for example, is to ask whether each class truly deserves what they actually have, and whether our social institutions correctly (or actually) honor the qualities necessary to fulfill their purpose.
Aristotle acknowledges that every theory of justice is necessarily discriminatory in the sense that everybody cannot, and perhaps should not, receive the same goods. But the question is which discrimination is just. In an example, Sandel says that if we were to distribute flutes among the population, and we had asked Aristotle who should get the best ones, his answer would be, "the best flute players." The theory of virtue says this is what flutes are for, to be played well. That is the purpose, or the telos of flutes. In giving them to the best flute players, we act in line with their nature and distribute according to merit. This is the correct definition of justice, according to Aristotle and other teleological thinkers.
Conclusion
Michael Sandel end the book with a brief analysis of what he considers to be the best way to think about justice. He insinuated throughout the book, but especially in the penultimate chapter "Dilemmas of Loyalty," Dr. Sandel shows he is more sympathetic to the narrative/teleological account of justice rather than ideas of moral individualism or utility. He believes the foundation of Aristotle's moral philosophy does a better job at describing how humans can best deliberate about justice.
Sandel includes certain historical dilemmas of loyalty to think about. In one case, a person has exclusive information that would bring his criminal brother to justice, but refuses to do so out of loyalty to his family member. Another example is that of a World War II bomber pilot objecting to perform a bombing run over his village, even if not doing so may ultimately harm his country's chances to win the war. In cases like these, it is worth asking if not telling on a family member or committing atrocities against your own community has any moral relevance. Whether there's something more than mere squeamishness involved. In other words, do we have moral obligations beyond those arising from consent? These are the complicated obligations of solidarity.
Familial relationships arise free from consent. One does not choose who he is related to, nor that he shares a communal history with a certain group of people. To Sandel, it's evident that your "life story is implicated in the stories of others."
But how is this related to justice? Well, he builds upon Aristotle's defense of the virtue principle to say that justice and laws are not in fact neutral with regard to arguments about the good life. They are almost never neutral, and even when it's possible, it may not be desirable.
To be against gay marriage is to say that same-sex relationships do not honor the virtues or the purpose(s) of the traditional definition of marriage. However, to say that I am neutral to the morality of same-sex marriage, and thus allow same-sex couples to marry is not a correct evaluation of such a view. Being "neutral" to the institution of marriage would have to involve a complete disestablishment of the idea of state-legitimized marriage licenses. In this second view, one is presupposing the idea that same-sex couples, too, are worthy of all the honors and virtues celebrated by the institution of marriage. This crowd acknowledges that same-sex marriages are just as legitimate as heterosexual marriages.
To say "live and let live," for example, is to say that anyone's life mission is capable of honoring the telos of life and is worthy of its benefits, whatever they may be (this of course includes concepts of non-violence and living a moral and ethical life; you can only live and let live if you let live...).
We are forced to conclude that both opponents and defenders of same-sex marriage have made their decisions with a prior evaluation of the telos of marriage. Neither view of justice is neutral, after all. They are both debates about the "good life." An conversation about the good life precedes the conversation about rights, as Aristotle states. They argue about which qualities meet the purpose of a specific institution.
This shows an incredible understanding of the moral landscape, and an observation - albeit with my limited experience on these subjects - I could have independently concluded. Michael Sandel proposes a "New Politics of the Common Good" which aims to move the justice conversation toward the virtue ethic. He emphasizes the following:
Citizenship, sacrifice, and service
The moral limits of markets
Inequality, solidarity, and civic virtue
A politics of moral engagement
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