Justice: A Reader

I bought this book for Prof. Michael Sandel's online Justice course. This book includes all the materials required to complete the online course and some more. It is 412 pages long with 14 chapters. Chapter 1. Introduction: Doing the Right Thing (The Queen v. Dudley and Stephen); Chapter 2. Utilitarianism (Principles of Moral and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham, and Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill); Chapter 3. Libertarianism (Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman, Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick, and The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich A. Hayek); Chapter 4. Locke: Property Rights (Second Treatise of Government by John Locke); Chapter 5. Markets and Morals: Surrogate Motherhood, Military Service (Tragic Choices by Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbit, Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson, All Go Down Together by James Thaub, In the Matter of Baby M, Is Women's Labor a Commodity? by Elizabeth S. Anderson); Chapter 6. Kant: Freedom as Autonomy (Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and On the Supposed Right to Lie by Immanuel Kant); Chapter 7. Rawls: Justice as Fairness (A Theory of Justice by John Rawls); Chapter 8. Distributive Justice: Equality, Entitlement, and Merit (A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick); Chapter 9. Affirmative Action: Reverse Discrimination? (Racial Discrimination or Righting Wrongs? by Richard Bernstein, Hopwood v. State of Texas, Grutter v. Bollinger, Bakke's Case: Are Quotas Unfair? by Ronald Dworkins, Double Reverse Discrimination by Jefferson Morley, and Proxy Wars: Liberals Denounce Racial Profiling Conservatives Denounce Affirmative Action. What's the Difference? by Michael Brus); Chapter 10. Aristotle: Justice and Virtue (The Politics and Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle); Chapter 11. Ability, Disability, and Discrimination: Cheerleaders and Golf Carts (A safety Blitz: Texas Cheerleaders Loses Status by Sue Anne Pressley, Honor and Resentment by Michael J. Sandel, Sorry, Free Rides Not Rights by Bob Ryan, Keep the PGA on Foot by Tom Kite, and PGA Tour v. Casey Martin); Chapter 12. Justice, Community and Membership (After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, Democracy's Discontent by Michael J. Sandel, and Spheres of Justice by Michael Walzer); Chapter 13. Moral Argument and Liberal Toleration (Political Liberalism by John Rawls and Political Liberalism by Michael J. Sandel); Chapter 14. Morality and Law: Same-Sex Marriage, For and Against (Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, Abolish Marriage by Michael Kinsley, Law. Morality and Sexual Orientation by John M. Finnis, Homosexuality and the Conservative Mind by Stephen Macedo, and Universalism, Liberal Theory, and the Problem of Gay Marriage by Robin West). Each chapter includes a short introduction that guides the reader on the critical issues. Anyone who is interested in reading moral philosophy can read this as a stand alone book. Those who has enrolled or planning to enroll in Professor Michael Sandel's class will find this book very useful. Some of the important reading materials for the course are actually not included in the online course because of copyright issues. If you do not have this book, you will need to either borrow the actual literature from a public library or buy it. The online course is very intensive and, if you have this book, I recommend that you just follow the order of the materials but read a chapter ahead of the course.

Good price for this book! And it’s very interesting too I learned a lot!

This book is divided into chapters of different perspectives on the question of moral philosophy: “what is the right thing to do?” when it comes to issues of gay rights, income distribution, affirmative action, and many other topics. For instance, you’ll read selections from the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill on Utilitarianism, then grapple later with Milton and Rose Friedman on Libertarianism, before getting to even more philsophical schools of thought from Aristotle, Rawls, Kant, and even Sandel himself. Don’t expect this to be light reading. This is a textbook, more or less, and is not meant to be more easily digested like previous popular books by Sandel, or even his Harvard Justice videos you may have seen on Youtube. This is rigorous stuff, especially if you are someone new to the study of the subject matter. If you are a student, someone who reads philosophy for fun, or maybe just an autodidactical sort, well, you’ll likely be just fine. Regardless of how you come to the book, the point is to engage with the ideas. Read the work, think about the questions, and then discuss with others.

This is a great book and you can find the author’s lectures (which are companions to the book) on the Harvard Justice course website. My only disappointment was that there was not more variety in point of view- for example, women, blacks/BIPOC, non-binary, etc. For example, we hear from Locke on property rights- important as his theories informed the US policies/laws on property rights—but he was a colony administrator and invested in businesses dependent upon slave labor. It’s obvious he’s trying to justify colonization. At this point in our “evolution”, it seems reasonable to have more than a singular point of view. No question this is a good collection, but you will find absolutely nothing radical here to challenge old exclusionary ways of thinking.

Excellent discussion of the effort to come up with societal ethics. Good to read a chapter, and then go to Sandel's Harvard website and watch a corresponding lecture video. It's good, too, because Sandel takes the reader through all the consequences of a given way of approaching ethics (for instance, a lot of people think Libertarianism is good because they imagine that it gives them more personal freedom, but Sandel points out just how selfish freedom without responsibility turns out to be.

Michael Sandel's book is a solid rendering of the on-line PBS course. A superb alternate experience is the audio-book, which captures the warmth and humor and interactive intelligence of Professor Sandel's class. On-line college instructors could gain much from watching the series, imagining the potential for video portrayals in addition to the usual textual discourse seen in on-line instruction. Likewise, listening to the exchanges between professor and student in the audio-book format provides an excellent introduction to Sandel's dialogic style. Top quality, truly worthwhile.

Recommended book for Coursera course with Dr. Sandel! Interested in the philosophical background of justice, get this book! Not an easy read but good. Makes you think!

While I agree with another reviewer who thinks that classical philosophy has trouble dealing with certain modern issues, I still believe it is worth understanding classical viewpoints, if only to learn their limits. This book is a collection of essays and selected writings by various classical and modern writers that deals with specific issues such as surrogate motherhood and same-sex marriage. I would not recommend reading this straight through (unless you have a lot of free time) rather it should serve as a starting point for research into one of one of the issues dealt with. Reading it straight through gives the reader a shallow understanding of sundry issues and may be more confusing that enlightening.