Michael Sandel, Public Philosopher
| Author | Richard Dagger |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885107074351 |
| Published date | 01 April 2007 |
| Date | 01 April 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Michael Sandel, Public Philosopher
EJPT
European Journal
Richard Dagger Arizona State University
of Political Theory
© SAGE Publications Ltd,
London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi
issn 1474-8851, 6(2) 219–226
[DOI: 10.1177/1474885107074351]
Michael J. Sandel Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics.
Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2005. 292 pp.
For better or worse, political philosophy is now largely the province of academics. Those
who find this situation deplorable are not so much nostalgic for bygone days as they
are convinced that political philosophers are engaged in an arid and abstract exercise, so
enamoured of fine distinctions, technical jargon, and hypothetical situations as to be cut off
from the real world of politics and the pressing concerns of real people. There is, I think,
some basis for this complaint. Some work in political philosophy is indeed arid, and some
is surely more abstract than it needs to be. I am puzzled, though, by those who maintain
that academic philosophers and political theorists have lost touch with the politics of the
societies in which they live. To take the leading example, the late John Rawls was not a
speech-making, manifesto-writing philosopher in the mould of Burke or Marx, but he did
address a number of pressing concerns, among them equality of opportunity, civil dis-
obedience and political obligation, the just distribution of property and wealth, and
relations among peoples. If Rawls had little to say about the more immediate political con-
troversies of the day, such as the war in Vietnam, affirmative action, or the abortion
controversy, there are plenty of other academic political philosophers who have not shared
his reticence. Ronald Dworkin, Michael Walzer, Charles Taylor, Martha Nussbaum, Peter
Singer, Amartya Sen, William Galston, Benjamin Barber, and Jean Bethke Elshtain come
quickly to mind as some of the most prominent among them.
For an example of an academic political philosopher who is clearly engaged with the
political issues of the day, however, we can do no better than to look to Harvard
University’s Michael Sandel. In addition to writing two much-discussed books published
by university presses, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (2nd edn, 1998) and Democracy’s
Discontent (1996), Professor Sandel is a frequent contributor to journals of opinion. Indeed,
his most recent book, Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics, collects 30 of Sandel’s
previously published writings, some drawn from academic journals and books, but most of
them brief essays that originally appeared in such venues as the Atlantic Monthly, the New
York Times, and, in seventeen cases, the New Republic. Among other things, Sandel offers
advice in these essays to candidates of the Democratic Party, condemns state-sponsored
lotteries, and comments on a wide range of topics, from abortion and the ethics of stem
cell research to environmental pollution and the part that sports teams play in fostering
civic identity. His tone is always temperate, given more to the gentle rebuke than the
Contact address: Richard Dagger, Arizona State University, Department of Political
Science, Box 873902, Tempe, AZ 85287–3902, USA.
Email: rdagger@asu.edu
219
European Journal of Political Theory 6(2)
thundering denunciation, but Sandel has his opinions about public matters, and his status
as an academic political philosopher has not prevented him from voicing them.
In this regard, as I have indicated, Sandel is hardly alone. Where he differs from other
academic political philosophers who are willing to speak to the issues of the day is in his
desire to formulate a ‘public philosophy’. This desire is manifest not only in the title of his
collected essays but also in the subtitle of Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public
Philosophy. But what does Sandel mean by ‘public philosophy’? And to what extent has he
succeeded in formulating one? These questions I shall try to answer in this review.
Sandel’s ‘Public Philosophy’
The short answer to the first question is that Sandel takes a public philosophy to be a vision
– a ‘governing’ or ‘animating’ vision in particular, as he says in the Introduction to his new
book. According to Sandel, American Democrats have been losing presidential elections
because they ‘have had trouble articulating . . . the vision of economic justice that under-
lies their social and economic policies. . . . [E]ven a strong argument for economic justice
does not by itself constitute a governing vision’ (p. 2), for ‘it does not connect the project
of self-government with people’s desire to participate in a common good greater than
themselves’ (p. 3). Furthermore, the problem is not peculiar to Democrats. Despite ‘the
outpouring of patriotism’ that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
‘American politics lacks an animating vision of the good society, and of the shared obliga-
tions of citizenship’ (p. 3). The first President Bush, it seems, has not been the only
American to fail to grasp the importance of ‘the vision thing’.
As Bush’s dismissive phrase suggests, however, the desire for a vision to govern or
animate public life may strike some people as nothing more than a vague longing for sooth-
ing slogans or stirring rhetoric. Sandel must have more to offer than bromides, then, if he
is to overcome their scepticism. He must also...
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