Michael Sandel
Michael Sandel
Michael J. Sandelis an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for the Harvard course "Justice" and for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth5 March 1953
CountryUnited States of America
religious teaching thinking
I do think it is very important that the religious communities do try to bring their teachings and their insights to bear on the stem cell debate and on the debate about genetic engineering.
children thinking parent
I think too often in our society parents, who may have good impulses, overreach and try to mold and shape and direct their child.
exercise thinking medicine
There are really exercises in a kind of consumerist ethic that I think don't have the same moral weight as medicine or health.
sex thinking practice
I would include non-medical sex selection as one of those practices that I think is morally questionable and that can carry adverse social consequences.
religious thinking cells
I'm a supporter of embryonic stem cell research. I do think there are very important moral and also religious questions at stake in the debate over embryonic stem cell research.
thinking medicine desire
I think it would be a great tragedy to devote medical resources and genetic technological breakthroughs to purposes that are not to do with health or medicine, but instead are to do with satisfying the desires that are created by the consumer society.
mean thinking medicine
I do not argue that nature is sacrosanct in the sense that we must never tamper with nature. That would disempower, really, all of medicine. That would mean that we can't combat dread diseases - malaria, polio, all of which are given by nature, if one thinks about it.
motivation inspiration thinking
There is a tendency to think that if we engage too directly with moral questions in politics, that's a recipe for disagreement, and for that matter, a recipe for intolerance and coercion.
children thinking order
The norm of unconditional parental love, I think, depends on the fact that we don't pick and choose the traits of our children in the way that we pick and choose the features of a car we might order, or a consumer good.
mistake philosophy thinking
One of the appeals of markets, as a public philosophy, is they seem to spare us the need to engage in public arguments about the meaning of goods. So markets seem to enable us to be non-judgmental about values. But I think that's a mistake.
children college thinking
Very often when we aim at the best, or what we may think is the best for our children, we aim really at lesser things, such as getting into a certain college.
children ambition thinking
I think part of being a parent, to love one's child, is to accept them as they come - not to see them as instruments of our ambition or as creatures to be molded, as if they were themselves commodities.
children good-life thinking
I think very often when we think we are aiming at the best for our children, what we are really doing is trying to position them for competitive success in an intensely driven kind of society. I'm not sure that always leads to the good life or to happiness.
engage practice responsibility tries
The responsibility of political philosophy that tries to engage with practice is to be clear, or at least accessible.