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Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel Quotes

Philosopher

Michael Sandel is a renowned American philosopher known for his contributions to ethics and political philosophy. His writings and teaching style have been well-received by students and the public, particularly for his in-depth exploration of moral and justice issues.

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All Thinking Children Moral Humans Kind Way Ifs Parent Values Debate

Famous Michael Sandel Quotes

“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.”

Thinking Needs Philosophy Seems Values Mistake Argument Appeals Goods Spares Judgmental Non Judgmental

Author:Michael Sandel

“To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions.”

Spiritual Justice Moral Virtue Arguing

Author:Michael Sandel

“You can't go wrong with fish and chips.”

Fishes Chips Fish And Chips

Author:Michael Sandel

“I almost became a political journalist, having worked as a reporter at the time of Watergate. The proximity to those events motivated me, when I wound up doing philosophy, to try to use it to move the public debate.”

Trying Philosophy Use Moving Political Events Wounds Debate Journalist Motivated Reporters Proximity Watergate

Author:Michael Sandel

“I find this in all these places I've been travelling - from India to China, to Japan and Europe and to Brazil - there is a frustration with the terms of public discourse, with a kind of absence of discussion of questions of justice and ethics and of values.”

Kind Values Term Justice Ethics Europe India China Absence Discussion Frustration Japan Discourse Brazil Public Discourse Places I've Been

Author:Michael Sandel

“I grew up in a Jewish family, and we have raised our children in a Jewish tradition. Religion gives a framework for moral enquiry in young minds and points us to questions beyond the material.”

Giving Mind Children Young Moral Materials Grew Grew Up Tradition Our Children Raised Framework Enquiry Young Minds Jewish Tradition Jewish Family

Author:Michael Sandel

“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life.”

“When I arrived at Harvard, I wanted to design a course in political theory that would have interested me, back when I was started out, in a way that the standard things didn't.”

Way Wanted Political Courses Design Theory Standards Harvard Back When Political Theory

Author:Michael Sandel

“The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.”

People Way Giving Ideas Real Understanding Justice Deserve Difficulty Simplest

Author:Michael Sandel

“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.”

Doe Perfect Common Democracy Share Citizens Different Backgrounds Common Life

Book:What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Source: What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

“What intrigued me most was not the technology as such but the questions about the human goods, the fundamental human values and virtues that are raised by debates over biotechnology.”

Humans Values Technology Virtue Fundamentals Raised Debate Goods Intrigued Human Values Biotechnology

Author:Michael Sandel

“There are some religious traditions that view human beings as participants in creation. This is true of the Jewish tradition, from which I come.”

Humans Religious Human Beings Views Creation Tradition Participants Religious Traditions Jewish Tradition

Author:Michael Sandel

“Human beings are empowered to exercise dominion over nature and even to be participants in creation; and yet, at the same time, there are strictures against idolatry, which is a kind of overreaching and confusing human beings' role with God's.”

Humans Kind Human Beings Roles Creation Exercise Confusing Empowered Dominion Idolatry Participants Overreaching

Author:Michael Sandel

“There are really exercises in a kind of consumerist ethic that I think don't have the same moral weight as medicine or health.”

Thinking Kind Moral Exercise Ethics Weight Medicine

Author:Michael Sandel

“What I really want for my children is that they be loved and that they be happy and that they lead a good life.”

Want Children My Children Good Life

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Thinking May Children Certain College Our Children Aim

Author:Michael Sandel

“Some parents expend great efforts to get their kids into the right nursery school or the right preschool, with the thought that that will set them on the path to success, to competitive success especially.”

Kids School Parent Effort Path Nursery Great Effort Preschool Path To Success Nursery School

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Thinking Trying Kind Children Position Our Children Driven Not Sure Good Life

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Ifs Thinking Children Parent Accepting Creatures Ambition Instruments Commodity Being A Parent

Author:Michael Sandel

“I think too often in our society parents, who may have good impulses, overreach and try to mold and shape and direct their child.”

Thinking Trying May Children Parent Shapes Direct Impulse Our Society Mold

Author:Michael Sandel

“I think people who want to use genetic technologies to gain a competitive edge for their children are engaging in a kind of overreaching that could really undermine our appreciation of children as gifts for which we should be grateful and, instead, to view them as products or instruments that are there to be molded and directed.”

People Thinking Want Should Kind Children Use Views Technology Products Gains Instruments Grateful Edges Appreciation Be Grateful Engaging Overreaching

Author:Michael Sandel

“It's true that to speak of an ethic of giftedness, which is very much the ethic that I deploy in raising questions about designer children and genetic engineering - an appreciation of the giftedness of the child or the giftedness of life does have religious resonance, because a great many religious traditions emphasize the sense in which the good things in life are not all our own doing; they are gifts from God.”

Children Doe Speak Religious Ethics Tradition Good Things Appreciation Designer Great Men Engineering Things In Life Gift From God Resonance Religious Traditions Genetic Engineering Giftedness Good Things In Life

Author:Michael Sandel

“It's possible to make sense of what's morally at stake in an appreciation of the gift of life, or the gift of a child, without necessarily presupposing that there is a giver. What matters is that the gift - in this case, the child - not be wholly our own doing, our own product.”

Children Matter Cases Products Appreciation Make Sense Stakes What Matters Giver Gifts Of Life

Author:Michael Sandel

“One of the ways in which parenting is a learning experience and an opportunity for moral growth is that we learn as parents that we don't choose the kind of child that we have.”

Way Kind Children Opportunity Parent Growth Moral Learning Experience Moral Growth

Author:Michael Sandel

“In most of our lives, we are accustomed to aiming at mastery and control and dominion- - over nature, over our lives, over our jobs, over our careers, over the goods that we buy.”

Jobs Careers Our Lives Goods Mastery Accustomed Dominion

Author:Michael Sandel

“Parenthood is a school for humility. We can't choose the precise traits of our children, and that is morally important. It teaches us what William May, a theologian whom I greatly admire, calls "an openness to the unbidden."”

May Children Important School Teach Humility Our Children Admire Openness Parenthood Traits Precise Theologian

Author:Michael Sandel

“I am trying to get at the moral arguments and the ethical status of various attempts at enhancement, or genetic engineering, or the bid for designer children. But there are implications for society at large.”

Trying Children Moral Argument Various Designer Ethical Engineering Implications Genetic Engineering Enhancement

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Thinking Social Sex Practice Consequence Medical Selection Adverse Questionable

Author:Michael Sandel

“In some parts of the world, that sex selection for boys - and it's usually for boys - reflects sex discrimination against girls, and it leads to very large imbalances - in China, in Korea, in India - in the population between boys and girls, a vast disproportion of boys to girls, and it reflects really this discriminatory attitude toward girls.”

World Girl Sex Attitude Boys India Population China Discrimination Selection Korea Boy And Girl Imbalance Boy Girl Sex Discrimination

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Thinking Way Children Facts Might Order Car Depends Picks Our Children Consumers Features Traits Norm Unconditional Parental Parental Love

Author:Michael Sandel

“If we go too far down the road of choosing the genetic traits of children, my worry is that parenting will be less a kind of school for humility than it should be, and we will become too accustomed to regarding children as instruments of our ambition and of our desires.”

Ifs Should Kind Children School Desire Worry Humility Ambition Instruments Traits Accustomed Down The Road

Author:Michael Sandel

“If parents are aiming at choosing children who will be good athletes, or great musicians, or who will get into Ivy League schools, or who will be tall enough to make the basketball team, then there is a danger that the life of the child will bear the burden of that expectation; and the risk of disappointment and the cost of disappointment will be even higher than they are now, and even now they can be considerable.”

“The other effect that I worry about is the effect on the parent, that the moral teaching of humility and of the limits to our control that parenthood teaches- - that that will be lost and that we will begin to think of children more as consumer goods than as gifts that we can't fully control and for which we aren't fully responsible.”

Thinking Children Lost Parent Moral Teach Worry Teaching Effects Humility Limits Responsible Consumers Goods Parenthood

Author:Michael Sandel

“The majority of American states had laws by the 1930s that allowed for forced sterilization of socially undesirable categories of people, so-called feeble-minded, for example, and with Hitler culminating in genocide.”

People States Law Example Majority Categories Genocide 1930s Undesirable Sterilization

Author:Michael Sandel

“The relief of suffering is a great good. The curing of illness and disease - these are great human goods. This is the mission of medicine.”

Humans Suffering Disease Medicine Illness Missions Relief Goods

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Ifs Thinking Mean Given Disease Medicine Arguing Combat Dread Malaria Polio

Author:Michael Sandel

“My argument is not that we must never intervene in nature. My argument is that there is a moral difference between intervention for the sake of health, to cure or prevent disease, and intervention for the sake of achieving a competitive edge for our kids in a consumer society.”

Kids Differences Moral Achieve Disease Argument Sake Edges Cures Consumers Intervention

Author:Michael Sandel

“Aiming at health, restoring health - that is a goal that is both morally important and limited, because it aims at the restoration of normal human functioning, which is an important part of human flourishing.”

Humans Important Goal Normal Aim Restoration Flourishing Restoring

Author:Michael Sandel

“Aiming at giving our kids a competitive edge in a consumer society - that, in principle, is a goal that is limitless.”

Giving Kids Goal Principles Edges Consumers Limitless

Author:Michael Sandel

“One can imagine a kind of hormonal arms race or genetic arms race, whether it's to do with height or IQ, conceivably, in the future. So it's limitless, and that's another of the features that sets it apart from medical intervention.”

Kind Race Imagine Arms Medical Features Height Intervention Limitless Arms Race

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Thinking Would Be Desire Purpose Resources Tragedy Medicine Medical Consumers Satisfying Technological Breakthrough Great Tragedy

Author:Michael Sandel

“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 Important Religious Moral Research Debate Cells Stakes Stem Supporter Stem Cell Stem Cell Research Embryonic Stem Cell Research Embryonic Stem Cells

Author:Michael Sandel

“In natural pregnancy, more than half of fertilized eggs fail to implant or are otherwise lost. Should we regard that as an instance of infant mortality? And if so, why are we not mounting ambitious public health campaigns to try to save and rescue all of the fertilized eggs that are lost in natural pregnancy? We would need a public health campaign of massive proportions if there really were over a fifty percent rate of infant mortality.”

“I have a broad but not an expert or scholarly background in the Jewish tradition. I've tried to learn what I can from childhood, but I am not an expert on Jewish teachings.”

I Can Teaching Childhood Tradition Backgrounds Experts Broads Scholarly Jewish Tradition

Author:Michael Sandel

“It is true that the Jewish tradition emphasizes the moral mandate to save life. It also has a different position from the Catholic Church on the moral status of the embryo. It has a more developmental view of when human life, in the sense of personhood, begins than does the Catholic Church.”

Humans Doe Different Church Views Moral Position Tradition Catholic Human Life Catholic Church Mandates Embryos Personhood Developmental Jewish Tradition

Author:Michael Sandel

“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.”

Thinking Trying Important Community Religious Teaching Bears Insight Debate Cells Engineering Stem Stem Cell Genetic Engineering Religious Community

Author:Michael Sandel

“Over the past three decades, markets and market thinking have been reaching into spheres of life traditionally governed by non-market norms. As a result, we've drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society.”

Thinking Past Economy Norm Over The Past

Author:Michael Sandel

“Most economics that is taught in college and universities today projects itself as a value-neutral science. This claim has always been open to question, but I think it's especially in doubt today.”

Thinking Today Doubt College

Author:Michael Sandel

“Today if you look at most economic textbooks, economics is not defined by subject matter. It's presented as a science of social choice that applies not only to material goods - not only to flat-screen televisions - but to every decision we make, whether it's to get married, or to stay married, whether to have children and how to educate those children, or how to look after our health.”

Children Today Choices Decision Economic Married Educate

Author:Michael Sandel

“Economics has increasingly become the science of human behavior in general, and it's all the more unlikely to think that it can possibly be value-free - and, in fact, it isn't. Economics rests on un-argued assumptions that need to be examined.”

Thinking Behavior Assumption Human Behavior

Author:Michael Sandel

About the Author

Born: March 5, 1953
Known for: Philosopher
Quotes: 68

Related Topics

Thinking Children Moral Humans Kind Way Ifs Parent Values Debate

Popular Topics

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Books & Sources

What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of MarketsRelated source material

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?Related source material

Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in PoliticsRelated source material

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