http://www.openculture.com/2009/10/michael_sandel_on_justice_lecture_iii.html The best free cultural & educational media on the web Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:30:57 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 http://www.openculture.com/2009/10/michael_sandel_on_justice_lecture_iii.html/comment-page-1#comment-13219 Robert Maxwell Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:03:22 +0000 http://www.openculture.com/?p=5064#comment-13219 In arguing for M. Jordan and Bill Gates' right to keep what they have made, Sandel notes that Jordan has had help in achieving success from others -- his team mates and his coach, eg., -- so he may owe them something. A student objects that team mates and coach have already been paid. But nobody mentions the particular culture, the social arrangement, within which all individuals work, that provides the framework necessary for Jordan's (or Gates') success. Individuals aside, a social system exists on its own level and got along fairly well with Michael Jordan's basketball and William Gates' Microsoft, hard as that is to believe. In arguing for M. Jordan and Bill Gates’ right to keep what they have made, Sandel notes that Jordan has had help in achieving success from others — his team mates and his coach, eg., — so he may owe them something. A student objects that team mates and coach have already been paid. But nobody mentions the particular culture, the social arrangement, within which all individuals work, that provides the framework necessary for Jordan’s (or Gates’) success. Individuals aside, a social system exists on its own level and got along fairly well with Michael Jordan’s basketball and William Gates’ Microsoft, hard as that is to believe.

]]> http://www.openculture.com/2009/10/michael_sandel_on_justice_lecture_iii.html/comment-page-1#comment-13218 Robert Maxwell Sat, 20 Mar 2010 06:58:05 +0000 http://www.openculture.com/?p=5064#comment-13218 In Lecture 3, on libertarianism, a lot of emphasis is placed on the premise that individuals own themselves. What does it mean? If they own themselves in the sense that they own property, then we're born unequal because willy nilly we come into a world with such givens as brains, ambition, looks, and families that are wealthy or poor. If we truly own ourselves, some of us own a lot less than others. In Lecture 3, on libertarianism, a lot of emphasis is placed on the premise that individuals own themselves. What does it mean? If they own themselves in the sense that they own property, then we’re born unequal because willy nilly we come into a world with such givens as brains, ambition, looks, and families that are wealthy or poor. If we truly own ourselves, some of us own a lot less than others.

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