Michael Sandel on Justice, Aristotle & Gay Marriage

We have men­tioned him here many times before. Michael Sandel teach­es phi­los­o­phy at Har­vard, includ­ing the ever-pop­u­lar course, “Jus­tice,” tak­en by some 14,000 stu­dents dur­ing the past two decades. (The leg­endary course is now freely avail­able online.) Speak­ing at the Aspen Insti­tute not too long ago, Sandel gave a very abbre­vi­at­ed ver­sion of the course. Call it “Jus­tice in Under an Hour.” (My title, not his.) And, by the time he wrapped things up, he got down to a time­ly ques­tion in Amer­i­ca. Is it just for the state to with­hold the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage from same sex cou­ples? What would Aris­to­tle (who laid the foun­da­tion for west­ern think­ing about jus­tice) have to say about this ques­tion? And how do Sandel’s Har­vard stu­dents grap­ple with it? The full pre­sen­ta­tion is avail­able above; the par­tic­u­lar sec­tion on gay mar­riage is here.

Look­ing for free phi­los­o­phy cours­es? Have a look through the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.