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What's the right thing to do?
That's a question I've asked thousands of students at Harvard University in
my class Justice.
Would it be just to torture the suspect to get the information?
Do you think that a person with a bad parent owes them less?
Is it all right to steal a drug that your child needs to survive?
My name is Michael Sandel and over the years thousands of students have
joined me for an ongoing debate about the moral decisions we face in our
everyday lives.
This is a course about justice.
And we begin with a story.
Suppose you're the driver of a trolley car--
Nikolai, if you didn't think you'd get caught, would you pay your taxes?
[LAUGHTER]
I don't think so.
Do I think I should be able to bid for a baby?
I'm not... Sure!
It's a market.
I mean--
In a situation that desperate, you have to do what you
have to do to survive.
You have to do what you have to do.
Yep, you gotta do what you gotta do.
What do you say to Marcus?
I've never been in the class like this before where they ask you to really
think and consider the moral dilemma.
I've never had such a fun class in my life.
You know?
We turn to the great philosophers of our past for answers.
Do you think Bentham is wrong to add up the collective happiness?
I don't think he is wrong.
But I think murder is murder in any case.
Then Bentham has to be wrong.
If you're right, he's wrong.
OK, then he's wrong.
All right.
Thank you.
Well done.
And we turn to the present to challenge the reasoning behind the
moral choices we make every day.
I think that what happened in the past has no bearing on what happens today
and I think that discriminating based on race should always be wrong.
I just want to say that white people have had their own affirmative action
in this country for more than 400 years.
It's called nepotism and quid pro quo.
So there's nothing wrong with correcting the injustice and
discrimination that's been done to black people for 400 years.
Even effort depends a lot on fortunate family circumstances for which we can
claim no credit.
Raise your hand, those of you here who are first in birth order.
[LAUGHTER]
I am too by the way.
[LAUGHTER]
Mike, I noticed you raise your hand.
[LAUGHTER]
Taking Justice was really an eye-opening experience for me.
Everything that you've thought of up to that point becomes questioned,
becomes challenged.
The purpose of sex is one, for it's procreative uses.
And two, for a unifying purpose between a man and a woman.
Your beliefs are your beliefs and that's fine.
But civil union is not marriage within the Catholic church.
What is the right thing to do?
People have been arguing for millennia, really.
And there is still not one definite answer.
And in ways that makes philosophy impossible but it makes it beautiful
at the same time-- that we're still debating similar questions.
And the reason they're unavoidable, the reason they're inescapable is that
we live some answer to these questions every day.
And now I have the chance to invite you to join us as Harvard opens its
classroom to the world.
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