Justice [Hardcover]

This book will not satisfy the elite of hair-splitting moral philosophers, but to my mind it is the best book I have ever seen explaining moral philosophy to neophytes. The examples come mostly from contemporary American social life and many are well-known in the literature. But many were new to me, and included some of the most morally conflictual issues I have ever encountered. I just cannot imagine a better way to present the content of modern moral philosophy to the world.

Michael Sandel is a quite famous political philosopher with a reputation for extreme adherence to a particular brand of community-oriented virtue theory that is critical of the two major traditions in moral philosophy---utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Peter Singer) and deontology (Immanuel Kant, John Rawls). However, the reader will likely not discover this fact until the very end of the book, so even-handed and appreciative is Sandel of the alternative approaches. Indeed, the book is filled with the tension of a World Cup match, where the top players in the world are paraded before us in all their splendor, and where it is difficult to call any one a looser. This attitude contrasts sharply with the standard behavior of professional philosophers, who have hissy-fits when confronted with arguments with which they disagree (Sandel is capable of this as well, of course, but not in this elegant volume).

The most important thing the student learns from this book is that morality is for real, and leading a moral life is the highest goal to which we can aspire. I learned moral philosophy in an era dominated by the sort of analytical philosophy according to which moral statements are meaningless utterances, and moral behavior is irrational and constricting. At its best, I was taught that moral principles were an individual's private property, and were about as important as one's musical or artistic taste. For Sandel, morality is not an accoutrement of the genteel life, but is the source of all meaning in life, and he conveys this message to the reader without an ounce of preachiness or self-righteousness.

In his previous writings, Sandel has been a major critic of John Rawls's theory of justice, which has been the centerpiece of liberal democratic political philosophy for almost forty years. Rawls' embraces a Kantian ethic that extends the Categorical Imperative (do unto others...) in a way relevant to social policy and political philosophy. According to Rawls, we must erect social institutions using principles that we would individually be willing to accept if we were behind a "veil of ignorance" that prevented us from knowing what position we would hold in the resulting social order. He suggests two major principles. The first is the lexical priority of liberty, meaning that no social order has the right to constrain freedom in the name of some type of social engineering. The second is the principle that society should be organized so that the well-being of least well off is maximized. This leads to a radical egalitarianism in which the question of the justice of the distribution of wealth and income is the major moral issue in society. In particular, it leads to a hyper-individualism in which the moral principles of individuals is of no importance in their claim to a "just share" of the material wealth of society, and individuals are worthy of respect whatever they happen to choose as a way of life, provided they leave room for others to pursue their individual goals. Sandel rightly rejects this political philosophy on the grounds that by favoring "rights" over "the good," we necessarily degrade political democracy and republican virtues.

Sandel's alternative is to embrace a form of virtue ethics according to which the moral is what would be enacted by the virtuous individual, and we can tell what is virtuous by inspecting the character of human nature and the embeddedness of individuals in a close fabric of social life. The virtuous individual will "flourish" through acting in according with his or her highest nature, and immorality is a form of self-destruction brought on through ignorance or laziness.

The main thing missing from this book is an appreciation for the science of human morality. Humans make morality in the same sense that they make food, babies, art, music, and war. Sandel does not appear to realize that theories of morality should explain moral behavior, much as linguistics attempts to explain human verbal communication. Philosophers appear to have the idea that the philosophical "experts" have no more reason to study people's actual moral beliefs than physicists have to study folk-physics. This is a serious error, which leads philosophers to seek the "one true theory" from which all moral truths can be deduced. There is no "one true theory." All of the major branches of moral philosophy are represented in the everyday moralizing of people. Obligation, consideration of consequences, a sense of virtue, and even visceral feelings of cleanliness and propriety are all involved in how people make moral choices.

Because Sandel does not treat moral behavior as worthy of scientific study, he misses one major point about human morality: the strong underlying unity of moral sensibility across all societies and covering most social issues. The motivating force of Sandel's book is moral conflict, either in the form of an individual having to make choices that necessarily involve opting for the lesser evil (for instance, should soldiers kill an innocent shepherd to save the lives of nineteen patriotic soldiers, or should a living fetus be sacrificed to satisfy the preferences of the importuned mother), when in fact most major moral choices concern good versus evil, and what is considered good and evil is pretty much the same the world over. Everywhere, people cherish honesty, loyalty, hard-work, bravery, considerateness, trustworthiness, and charity. Similarly, everywhere people prefer insiders to outsiders, and take pleasure in hurting those who violate personal integrity or social rules. It is these moral values that have made humanity the imposing presence it has upon the planet, and if we are to survive into the future, it is these basic moral values, which are universal from small tribes of hunter-gathers to the vast populations of advanced technological society, that will provide the energy for the tasks that lie ahead of us.

Some other reviews say it better, but the book, in my opinion, is an introduction and conversation-starter to the topics of Justice and Morality rather than a definitive work.

The big plus of the work is that his writing style is *very* easy to read and the issues he brings up are both current and relevant. It is easy to apply the issues in a practical way as he talks about them. some examples are military service, surrogate mothers, bailouts, and issues of religion in politics. Good stuff. Easy to get a reader engaged and discuss the underlying moral principles of the various points of view and how different principles result in different conclusions as to what to do in the various situations.

The down sides are his tendency to provide value judgments on everything he considers. "great thinker", "brilliant pilosophy"; each chapter comes across as a conclusion rather than a discussion. This may be intentional on the part of the author since it can be nice to be led to answer. However, in my opinion, that kind of hubris for any author, but particularly about a subject as difficult as this, just sends me through the roof.

If you are looking for a solid, engaging, introduction into the issues of morality, moral philosophy, and "justice" this may server as a fine work. It would also server as an excellent book as a seed for a book group, or any other group, that wants to discuss these issues. I do ask that the reader not take what is said as the final answer, but simply the authors introduction to the issues.

If you are looking for a more thorough analysis of the subject from a recent, and practical perspective, that is still readable, I would encourage you to look at works by Richard Posner.

As a college student I dabbled in political philosophy - something I ought to do (ask the big questions). The courses examined texts from key thinkers, and traced ideas over the generations. I found this approach difficult: though often interesting, I soon forgot most of the content.

Sandel's book is different. Although referring to key thinkers, he links their ideas to current political and social issues (affirmative action, laissez-faire economics, etc.). This not only drew my interest, but helped me retain content (related to the abstraction called "justice"). While I sometimes disagree with Sandel's conclusions, I found his material provocative, relevant, and interesting.

I admire the author's ability to make political philosophy more accessible. However, as evidenced particularly by the case of reparations, I think some of his conclusions are too ivory-tower. Let's say we give $20,000 to every African-American as compensation for "historical offenses." Where would that money go? WHAT GOOD would come of it? For too many beneficiaries I fear it would bolster an already troublesome sense of entitlement, linked to passivity; the funds might better be targeted to (e.g.) education and public health. Sandel does not move beyond abstract thinking to deal with this issue on-the-ground. (In my own defense, let it be known that I worked in government for an African-American congressman on community development issues.) In recent years I have changed my thinking on affirmative action: we need it for poor people of any color or ethnicity, and not for those with more adequate resources.

Although I liked this book, I greatly value the criticisms found in two other Amazon reviews, and highly recommend these for deeper understanding of this book: see 3-star reviews written by "Omer Belsky" and "Magic Man." Each probes to a deeper level than my own review, and together prompted me to reduce my rating for the book from 5 to 4 stars.

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