47 Quotes by Michael J. Sandel

[T]he commitment to a framework neutral among ends can be seen as a kind of value [...] but its value consists precisely in its refusal to affirm a preferred way of life or conception of the good.

Philosophy is a distancing, if not debilitating, activity.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt launched Social Security in 1935, he did not present it as expressing the mutual obligation of citizens to one another. ... Rather than offer a communal rationale, FDR argued that such rights were essential to "true individual freedom," adding, "necessitous men are not free men.

Προσκαλ;v όποιον έχει πετύχει να επανεξετάσει τη δική του αξιοκρατική ύβρη. Ελπίζω ότι αυτό θα οδηγήσει σε μια δημόσια ζωή λιγότερο πολωμένη και περισσότερο γενναιόδωρη, στο επίκεντρο της οποίας θα μπορέσουμε να θέσουμε αυτό που οφείλουμε.

We’ve come to equate citizenship as an extension of market relations.

Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things. It is also about the right way to value things.

The more we regard our success as our own doing, the less responsibility we feel for those who fall behind.

Honesty is the best policy. It’s also the most profitable.

Happiness is not a state of mind but a way of being, “an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.