Michael Sandel Quotes

Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'.

The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be

The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.

To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions.

Whether you're a libertarian liberal or a more egalitarian liberal, the idea is that justice means being non-judgmental with respect to the preferences people bring to public life.

I think too often in our society parents, who may have good impulses, overreach and try to mold and shape and direct their child.

Aiming at giving our kids a competitive edge in a consumer society - that, in principle, is a goal that is limitless.

You can't go wrong with fish and chips.

What intrigued me most was not the technology as such but the questions about the human goods, the fundamental human values and virtues that are raised by debates over biotechnology.

The most fateful change that unfolded during the past three decades was not an increase in greed. It was the expansion of markets, and of market values, into spheres of life where they don’t belong.

In most of our lives, we are accustomed to aiming at mastery and control and dominion- - over nature, over our lives, over our jobs, over our careers, over the goods that we buy.

I do think it is very important that the religious communities do try to bring their teachings and their insights to bear on the stem cell debate and on the debate about genetic engineering.

There are some religious traditions that view human beings as participants in creation. This is true of the Jewish tradition, from which I come.

One of the ways in which parenting is a learning experience and an opportunity for moral growth is that we learn as parents that we don't choose the kind of child that we have.

Very often when we aim at the best, or what we may think is the best for our children, we aim really at lesser things, such as getting into a certain college.

I grew up in a Jewish family, and we have raised our children in a Jewish tradition. Religion gives a framework for moral enquiry in young minds and points us to questions beyond the material.

Most economics that is taught in college and universities today projects itself as a value-neutral science. This claim has always been open to question, but I think it's especially in doubt today.

I think the reason we might hesitate to pay cash to students for doing well on tests or getting good grades or reading books is that we sense that the monetary payment is an extrinsic reward.

The relief of suffering is a great good. The curing of illness and disease - these are great human goods. This is the mission of medicine.

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.

My goal is first of all to promote a public debate about where markets serve the public good and where they don't belong. That's my first goal.

There are really exercises in a kind of consumerist ethic that I think don't have the same moral weight as medicine or health.

What I really want for my children is that they be loved and that they be happy and that they lead a good life.

It's ultimately the purpose of education to cultivate the love of learning for its own sake.

I have a broad but not an expert or scholarly background in the Jewish tradition. I've tried to learn what I can from childhood, but I am not an expert on Jewish teachings.

I'm a supporter of embryonic stem cell research. I do think there are very important moral and also religious questions at stake in the debate over embryonic stem cell research.

When I arrived at Harvard, I wanted to design a course in political theory that would have interested me, back when I was started out, in a way that the standard things didn't.