American political philosopher
Michael Joseph Sandel (born 5 March 1953) is 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 (1982).
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Alternative Names:
Michael J. Sandel
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Michael Joseph Sandel
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This liberalism says, in other words, that what makes the just society just is not the telos or purpose or end at which it aims, but precisely its refusal to choose in advance among competing purposes and ends. In its constitution and its laws, the just society seeks to provide a framework within which its citizens can pursue their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others
Political philosophy seems often to reside at a distance from the world. Principles are one thing, politics another, and even our best efforts to ‘live up’ to our ideals typically founder on the gap between theory and practice.<p>But if political philosophy is unrealizable in one sense, it is unavoidable in another. This is the sense in which philosophy inhabits the world from the start; our practices and institutions are embodiments of theory . . . . for all our uncertainties about ultimate questions of political philosophy — of justice and value and the nature of the good life — the one thing we know is that we live some answer all the time.