One thing the world needs,
one thing this country desperately needs
is a better way
of conducting our political debates.
We need to rediscover
the lost art of democratic argument.
(Applause)
If you think about the arguments we have,
most of the time it's shouting matches
on cable television,
ideological food fights on the floor of Congress.
I have a suggestion.
Look at all the arguments we have these days
over health care,
over bonuses and bailouts on Wall Street,
over the gap between rich and poor,
over affirmative action and same-sex marriage.
Lying just beneath the surface
of those arguments,
with passions raging on all sides,
are big questions
of moral philosophy,
big questions of justice.
But we too rarely
articulate and defend
and argue about
those big moral questions in our politics.
So what I would like to do today
is have something of a discussion.
First, let me take
a famous philosopher
who wrote about those questions
of justice and morality,
give you a very short lecture
on Aristotle of ancient Athens,
Aristotle's theory of justice,
and then have a discussion here
to see whether Aristotle's ideas
actually inform
the way we think and argue
about questions today.
So, are you ready for the lecture?
According to Aristotle,
justice means giving people what they deserve.
That's it; that's the lecture.
(Laughter)
Now, you may say, well, that's obvious enough.
The real questions begin
when it comes to arguing about
who deserves what and why.
Take the example of flutes.
Suppose we're distributing flutes.
Who should get the best ones?
Let's see what people --
What would you say?
Who should get the best flute?
You can just call it out.
(Audience: Random.)
Michael Sandel: At random. You would do it by lottery.
Or by the first person to rush into the hall to get them.
Who else?
(Audience: The best flute players.)
MS: The best flute players. (Audience: The worst flute players.)
MS: The worst flute players.
How many say the best flute players?
Why?
Actually, that was Aristotle's answer too.
(Laughter)
But here's a harder question.
Why do you think,
those of you who voted this way,
that the best flutes should go to the best flute players?
Peter: The greatest benefit to all.
MS: The greatest benefit to all.
We'll hear better music
if the best flutes should go to the best flute players.
That's Peter? (Audience: Peter.)
MS: All right.
Well, it's a good reason.
We'll all be better off if good music is played
rather than terrible music.
But Peter,
Aristotle doesn't agree with you that that's the reason.
That's all right.
Aristotle had a different reason
for saying the best flutes should go to the best flute players.
He said,
that's what flutes are for --
to be played well.
He says that to reason about
just distribution of a thing,
we have to reason about,
and sometimes argue about,
the purpose of the thing,
or the social activity --
in this case, musical performance.
And the point, the essential nature,
of musical performance
is to produce excellent music.
It'll be a happy byproduct
that we'll all benefit.
But when we think about justice,
Aristotle says,
what we really need to think about
is the essential nature of the activity in question
and the qualities that are worth
honoring and admiring and recognizing.
One of the reasons
that the best flute players should get the best flutes
is that musical performance
is not only to make the rest of us happy,
but to honor
and recognize
the excellence
of the best musicians.
Now, flutes may seem ... the distribution of flutes
may seem a trivial case.
Let's take a contemporary example
of the dispute about justice.
It had to do with golf.
Casey Martin -- a few years ago,
Casey Martin --
did any of you hear about him?
He was a very good golfer,
but he had a disability.
He had a bad leg, a circulatory problem,
that made it very painful
for him to walk the course.
In fact, it carried risk of injury.
He asked the PGA,
the Professional Golfers' Association,
for permission to use a golf cart
in the PGA tournaments.
They said, "No.
Now that would give you an unfair advantage."
He sued,
and his case went all the way
to the Supreme Court, believe it or not,
the case over the golf cart,
because the law says
that the disabled
must be accommodated,
provided the accommodation does not
change the essential nature
of the activity.
He says, "I'm a great golfer.
I want to compete.
But I need a golf cart
to get from one hole to the next."
Suppose you were
on the Supreme Court.
Suppose you were deciding
the justice of this case.
How many here would say
that Casey Martin does have a right to use a golf cart?
And how many say, no, he doesn't?
All right, let's take a poll, show of hands.
How many would rule in favor of Casey Martin?
And how many would not? How many would say he doesn't?
All right, we have a good division of opinion here.
Someone who would not
grant Casey Martin the right to a golf cart,
what would be your reason?
Raise your hand, and we'll try to get you a microphone.
What would be your reason?
(Audience: It'd be an unfair advantage.)
MS: It would be an unfair advantage
if he gets to ride in a golf cart.
All right, those of you,
I imagine most of you who would not give him the golf cart
worry about an unfair advantage.
What about those of you who say
he should be given a golf cart?
How would you answer the objection?
Yes, all right.
Audience: The cart's not part of the game.
MS: What's your name? (Audience: Charlie.)
MS: Charlie says --
We'll get Charlie a microphone in case someone wants to reply.
Tell us, Charlie,
why would you say he should be able to use a golf cart?
Charlie: The cart's not part of the game.
MS: But what about walking from hole to hole?
Charlie: It doesn't matter; it's not part of the game.
MS: Walking the course is not part of the game of golf?
Charlie: Not in my book, it isn't.
MS: All right. Stay there, Charlie.
(Laughter)
Who has an answer for Charlie?
All right, who has an answer for Charlie?
What would you say?
Audience: The endurance element is a very important part of the game,
walking all those holes.
MS: Walking all those holes?
That's part of the game of golf? (Audience: Absolutely.)
MS: What's your name? (Audience: Warren.)
MS: Warren.
Charlie, what do you say to Warren?
Charley: I'll stick to my original thesis.
(Laughter)
MS: Warren, are you a golfer?
Warren: I am not a golfer.
Charley: And I am. (MS: Okay.)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
You know,
it's interesting.
In the case, in the lower court,
they brought in golfing greats
to testify on this very issue.
Is walking the course essential to the game?
And they brought in Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
And what do you suppose they all said?
Yes. They agreed with Warren.
They said, yes, walking the course
is strenuous physical exercise.
The fatigue factor is an important part of golf.
And so it would change
the fundamental nature of the game
to give him the golf cart.
Now, notice,
something interesting --
Well, I should tell you about the Supreme Court first.
The Supreme Court
decided.
What do you suppose they said?
They said yes,
that Casey Martin must be provided a golf cart.
Seven to two, they ruled.
What was interesting about their ruling
and about the discussion we've just had
is that the discussion about
the right, the justice, of the matter
depended on
figuring out what is
the essential nature of golf.
And the Supreme Court justices
wrestled with that question.
And Justice Stevens, writing for the majority,
said he had read all about the history of golf,
and the essential point of the game
is to get very small ball from one place
into a hole
in as few strokes as possible,
and that walking was not essential, but incidental.
Now, there were two dissenters,
one of whom was Justice Scalia.
He wouldn't have granted the cart,
and he had a very interesting dissent.
It's interesting because
he rejected the Aristotelian premise
underlying the majority's opinion.
He said it's not possible
to determine the essential nature
of a game like golf.
Here's how he put it.
"To say that something is essential
is ordinarily to say that it is necessary
to the achievement of a certain object.
But since it is the very nature of a game
to have no object except amusement,
(Laughter)
that is, what distinguishes games
from productive activity,
(Laughter)
it is quite impossible to say
that any of a game's arbitrary rules
is essential."
So there you have Justice Scalia
taking on the Aristotelian premise
of the majority's opinion.
Justice Scalia's opinion
is questionable
for two reasons.
First, no real sports fan would talk that way.
(Laughter)
If we had thought that the rules
of the sports we care about
are merely arbitrary,
rather than designed to call forth
the virtues and the excellences
that we think are worthy of admiring,
we wouldn't care about the outcome of the game.
It's also objectionable
on a second ground.
On the face of it,
it seemed to be -- this debate about the golf cart --
an argument about fairness,
what's an unfair advantage.
But if fairness were the only thing at stake,
there would have been an easy and obvious solution.
What would it be? (Audience: Let everyone use the cart.)
Let everyone ride in a golf cart
if they want to.
Then the fairness objection goes away.
But letting everyone ride in a cart
would have been, I suspect,
more anathema
to the golfing greats
and to the PGA,
even than making an exception for Casey Martin.
Why?
Because what was at stake
in the dispute over the golf cart
was not only the essential nature of golf,
but, relatedly, the question:
What abilities
are worthy
of honor and recognition
as athletic talents?
Let me put the point
as delicately as possible:
Golfers are a little sensitive
about the athletic status of their game.
(Laughter)
After all, there's no running or jumping,
and the ball stands still.
(Laughter)
So if golfing is the kind of game
that can be played while riding around in a golf cart,
it would be hard to confer
on the golfing greats
the status that we confer,
the honor and recognition
that goes to truly great athletes.
That illustrates
that with golf,
as with flutes,
it's hard to decide the question
of what justice requires,
without grappling with the question,
"What is the essential nature
of the activity in question,
and what qualities,
what excellences
connected with that activity,
are worthy of honor and recognition?"
Let's take a final example
that's prominent in contemporary political debate:
same-sex marriage.
There are those who favor state recognition
only of traditional marriage
between one man and one woman,
and there are those who favor state recognition
of same-sex marriage.
How many here
favor the first policy:
the state should recognize traditional marriage only?
And how many favor the second, same-sex marriage?
Now, put it this way:
What ways of thinking
about justice and morality
underlie the arguments we have
over marriage?
The opponents of same-sex marriage say
that the purpose of marriage,
fundamentally, is procreation,
and that's what's worthy of honoring
and recognizing and encouraging.
And the defenders of same-sex marriage say no,
procreation is not the only purpose of marriage;
what about a lifelong, mutual, loving commitment?
That's really what marriage is about.
So with flutes, with golf carts,
and even with a fiercely contested question
like same-sex marriage,
Aristotle has a point.
Very hard to argue about justice
without first arguing
about the purpose of social institutions
and about what qualities are worthy
of honor and recognition.
So let's step back from these cases
and see how they shed light
on the way we might improve, elevate,
the terms of political discourse
in the United States,
and for that matter, around the world.
There is a tendency to think
that if we engage too directly
with moral questions in politics,
that's a recipe for disagreement,
and for that matter, a recipe for
intolerance and coercion.
So better to shy away from,
to ignore,
the moral and the religious convictions
that people bring to civic life.
It seems to me that our discussion
reflects the opposite,
that a better way
to mutual respect
is to engage directly
with the moral convictions
citizens bring to public life,
rather than to require
that people leave their deepest moral convictions
outside politics
before they enter.
That, it seems to me, is a way
to begin to restore
the art of democratic argument.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you very much.
Thanks. Thank you.
Chris.
Thanks, Chris.
Chris Anderson: From flutes to golf courses
to same-sex marriage --
that was a genius link.
Now look, you're a pioneer of open education.
Your lecture series was one of the first to do it big.
What's your vision for the next phase of this?
MS: Well, I think that it is possible.
In the classroom, we have arguments
on some of the most fiercely held
moral convictions that students have
about big public questions.
And I think we can do that in public life more generally.
And so my real dream would be
to take the public television series
that we've created of the course --
it's available now, online,
free for everyone anywhere in the world --
and to see whether we can partner with institutions,
at universities in China, in India,
in Africa, around the world,
to try to promote
civic education
and also a richer kind
of democratic debate.
CA: So you picture, at some point,
live, in real time,
you could have this kind of conversation, inviting questions,
but with people from China and India joining in?
MS: Right. We did a little bit of it here
with 1,500 people in Long Beach,
and we do it in a classroom at Harvard
with about 1,000 students.
Wouldn't it be interesting
to take this way
of thinking and arguing,
engaging seriously with big moral questions,
exploring cultural differences
and connect through a live video hookup,
students in Beijing and Mumbai
and in Cambridge, Massachusetts
and create a global classroom.
That's what I would love to do.
(Applause)
CA: So, I would imagine
that there are a lot of people who would love to join you in that endeavor.
Michael Sandel. Thank you so much. (MS: Thanks so much.)