Michael J. Sandel

Michael J. Sandel ( born March 5, 1953 in Minneapolis ) is an American philosopher. He was known primarily as a co-founder of the communitarian flow.

He studied and graduated at the University of Oxford with Charles Taylor. Since 1980 he has taught political philosophy at Harvard University, where he is Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government. He is known especially due to his course Justice with Michael Sandel, who is now also available on the Internet.

Work

In his work, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, published in 1982, he gave a critical response to John Rawls 's theory of justice.

In contrast to the libertarian critique ( for example, by Robert Nozick ) but he objected to the absence of particular and social values ​​within Rawls ' theory. The so-called Sandel of " unbound self " as defending liberalism, it was only at the expense of his loyalties and beliefs; Everyone should be socialized and influenced by groups, traditions, communities. Therefore, is also the thought experiment, Rawls ', the original state by which Rawls bases his theory, utopian: A veil of ignorance is unreal.

The highest priority within the society should not therefore have the freedom of man, but the virtues and the "good" of the people and the community in which he lives.

Sandel is, among other things, in addition to Charles Taylor and Michael Walzer, one of the pioneers of the communitarian critique of the " philosophical liberalism." In his lectures, he published in 1995 in German treats the political culture of democracy. For a values ​​-neutral liberalism Sandel wants to prove that it is not possible to separate the anchor of liberty rights of particular value orientations and conceptions of the good. This diagnosis has implications for the assessment values ​​of charged traditions today. For Sandel, the republicanism, which has played a large role in the U.S. early days, continues to be a goal Without qualifying active citizenship, it would not succeed against the moral decay of society and current politics to realize a future free community. He criticizes in this context primarily economic view of the world in which man sees himself as a consumer rather than as part of a civil society and, for example, strives at the stadium in the VIP area (English Sky box) to sit. He calls the " skyboxification " the fundamental evil of the current U.S. society.

Trivia

Sandel is variously described as a model for the appearance - called the character Montgomery Burns in the television series The Simpsons - but not the character: Sandel has a similar hairstyle like Burns and often applies the characteristic of Burns gesture to bring together the fingertips of both hands. It was also pointed out that several of the writers are Harvard graduates and Professor Sandel have attended courses.

Writings

• Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. 1985; 2nd edition: Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-521-56741-1
• Liberalism or republicanism. From the necessity of civic virtue. Passages -Verlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85165-159-6
• Democracy 's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-674-19745-9
• Friendship & justice. In: Klaus -Dieter Eichler (ed.): Philosophy of Friendship. Reclam, Leipzig 1999 ISBN 3-379-01669-1, pp. 206-215
• Ethics of liberalism. In: Concordia. No. 47, materialism, Biberach 2006, ISBN 3-88535-405-5
• Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics. Harvard University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-674-02365-9
• The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-674-03638-3 The Case Against Perfection. Ethics in the age of genetic engineering. With a foreword by Jürgen Habermas. Berlin University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-3-940432-14-8

• Justice - as we are doing the right thing, Berlin: Ullstein, 2013, ISBN 978-3-550-08009-8

• What you can not buy for money - the moral limits of the market, Berlin: Ullstein, 2012, ISBN 978-3550080265