Analysis
The first chapter of this book is titled “Doing the Right Thing”. It my opinion, this chapter holds some content, but is still meant to be an introductory part to the main ideas.
The chapter begins with a real scenario of price gouging. A hurricane has caused many companies to inflate their prices ridiculously because people would buy the products out of necessities. Here we see some arguments being proposed. For those who support, or at least tolerate price gouging would claim that there is no “just price”, and that the price is decided by supply and demand. It can also be approached practically, that price gouging allows more of the essential products to be produced. Opposition of price gouging can argue that it is wrong to monetize the hardships of others, there is an intrinsic price of products, and that the transactions made are not truly free, but rather forced due to circumstances.
The book then gives out three metrics to judge morality: welfare, freedom, and virtue. Welfare is the idea of giving practical benefits to people. Freedom is allowing people to make autonomous choices, and often tied to the rights of people. Virtue is defining a what a good society, and following that. In other words, keeping virtue is what a lot of think of when we say “living morally”. Why we consider welfare and freedom is more intuitive: we should aim for benefits, we should keep rights. It’s more obvious that it is conducted in contemporary politics as well. While being less obvious, the book insists that virtue is also necessary. There are some critics to virtue: that morality and subjective, and enforcing morality is too much intervention. However, the author tells us that to decide who deserves what, it is important to define what we perceive as “good” and “bad”.
After that, another incident, giving Purple Hearts in introduced. The controversy here is whether psychological wounds deserve to be rewarded with the Purple Heart. The medal focuses on sacrifice rather than bravery, so the question becomes “Is getting psychological wounds also a sacrifice?” The proposition to this is that they are also wounds inflicted by the enemy, and that they harm those who have those illnesses. Opposition can claim that psychological wounds are not intentionally inflicted, they are harder to diagnose, and that it is a sign of weakness. This dilemma is important because it is one of the examples where it is clear we decide what the virtue is, rather than welfare or freedom.
Another incident that is given is the bailout outrage. People were furious that the executives that were involved in the 2008 economic crisis received bonuses from the government money they received. This question also delves in to justice. What makes those executives undeserving? It could be the greed of them, but they always had greed, and in this case is no different. It could be that they do not deserve the money, they have caused so much economic damage, and the government help was not given to reward them. A defense to this point is that the people were simply unlucky and tried their hardest. However, then that point opens up another question. When the executives had lots of money flowing in their bank accounts, wasn’t that also due to lucky circumstances?
To introduce how moral dilemmas work, and to explain the characteristics of them, the book gives two more examples. The first on e is the famous trolley dilemma. A train with broken brakes is heading towards 5 people, which would kill all of them. The only choice is to pull a lever, shifting the direction to kill 1 instead. This is a hypothetical, so there are no contingencies. The 5 people will indeed die, the train will not magically stop, the 1 person that we might kill is not a super evil man. This quandary is interesting. On first glance, the majority of people choose killing the 1 person instead. However, when we change the hypothetical to pushing a heavy man to stop the train, many would choose not to push the man. The principle that the majority used in the first situation was utilitarianism. 5 deaths are more than 1. In their perspective, it didn’t seem to carry on to the other scenario, although having great similarities. A hypothetical might seem abstract because in the real world there are no guaranteed things, but it helps us focus on the main philosophical question, rather than talking about irrelevant possibilities. Now take the next scenario explained in the book: the Afghan goatherds. This was a real incident. American soldiers are on a mission in Afghanistan. They must move secretly to not be caught. However, some goatherds saw the Americans. After some thinking, the soldiers let them go instead of killing them. Later the soldiers were surrounded by the enemy, with most of them dying. This is a similar situation seeing that it is about killing innocent people for another good. However, the answer is not clear-cut because we some differences. Maybe the goatherds are not innocent, maybe they supported the Taliban. Or maybe they didn’t exactly support them, they were tortured or pressured to give information.
Professor Michael Sandel tells us how to deal with justice. First, make your opinion about a dilemma. Second, find the principle behind that. Third, use that principle again and again, see where it applies and see where it doesn’t, and make some amendments. The author agrees that morality cannot give an objective answer that everybody can agree with. However, he still highlights the importance of studying the issue. It can flesh out the moral arguments as detailed as possible. It can influence the ideologies of people sometimes. It can inform people the alternatives of solutions. It can foster a desirable community, because after all, we cannot avoid these moral questions in our lives. The book will introduce the ideas of some influential philosophers. The aim is not to open an exhibition of ideas, but rather to let leaders to build an informed opinion about morality and justice.
Thoughts
The part I like most about this section is the encouragement of thinking about justice. As a debater, sometimes it makes me think that debating about issues is meaningless. No matter what I say, it will still merely be a “debatable topic” not a resolved issue. However, this book gives meaning in that by saying that it is important to find the best solution, to foster the best society that we can. When we think about it, science, also cannot tell us everything about the world. There would still be mysteries. There would still be undiscovered things that we are not even curious about. Just like we find joy in finding things day by day, instead of feeling discouraged about the impossibility to find absolutely everything, we should take part in the discussion of justice as well.
Talk
“Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?” by Anne. T and Robert M. Bass Professor Michael Sandel, has teached me a lot about morality and justice. It widened my knowledge about philosophical theory, and enabled me to make a more informed and educated choice about moral dilemmas.
I’m also doing a video book review online. It’s not a chapter-by-chapter analysis like this one. It’s a review by answering questions about the book that improves our understanding about the topics.
This is the link for the series: