Justice by Michael J. Sandel | Book Summary (All Chapters)
Chapter 1: Doing the Right Thing
- There are three different ways of thinking about justice (i.e. ways to approach the
distribution of goods):
1. Maximizing welfare
2. Respecting freedom
3. Promoting virtue
- The standard case for unfettered markets rests on two claims:
1. Markets promote the welfare of society as a whole by providing incentives for people to
work hard supplying the goods that other people want.
2. Markets respect individual freedom; rather than impose a certain value on goods and
services, markets let people choose for themselves what value to place on the things they
exchange.
- The virtue argument:
"Greed is a vice, a bad way of being, especially when it makes people oblivious to the
suffering of others. More than a personal vice, it is at odds with civic virtue. Excessive
greed is a vice that a good society should discourage if it can."
- It is not always simply about welfare and freedom. It is also about virtue - about cultivating
the attitudes and dispositions, the qualities of character, on which a good society depends.
- One of the greatest questions of political philosophy: Does a just society seek to promote
the virtue of its citizens?
- Aristotle teaches that justice means giving people what they deserve. And in order to
determine who deserve what, we have to determine what virtues are worthy of honour and
reward. Aristotle maintains that we can't figure out what just constitution is without first
reflecting the most desirable way of life. For him, law can't be neutral on questions of the
good life.
- Modern philosophers argue that the principles of justice that define our rights should not
rest on any particular conception of virtue, or of the best way to live. Instead, a just society
respects each person's freedom to choose his or her own conception of the good life.
- Most of our arguments are about promoting prosperity and respecting individual freedom,
on the surface. But underlying these arguments, we can glimpse another set of convictions
- about what virtues are worthy of honour and reward, and what way of life a good society
should promote.
- To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize -income and
wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honours. A just society
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, distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard
questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why.
- An example of a moral dilemma:
Some moral dilemmas arise from conflicting moral principles. For example, one principle that
comes into play in the trolley problem says we should save as many lives as possible, but
another says it is wrong to kill an innocent person, even for a good cause. Confronted with
a situation in which saving a number of lives depends on killing an innocent person, we
face a moral quandary. We must try to figure out which principle has greater weight, or is
more appropriate under the circumstances.
- Life in democratic societies is rife with disagreement about right and wrong, justice and
injustice (e.g. some favour abortions and other don't, some reject torture of terror suspects
and others don't).
- The book answers the question: How can we reason our way through the contested
terrain of justice and injustice, equality and inequality, individual rights and common
good?
- Moral reflection emerges naturally from an encounter with a hard moral question. We start
with an opinion about the right thing to do. Then we reflect on the reason fro our
conviction and seek out the principle on which it is based. Then, confronted with a
situation that confounds the principle, we are pitched into confusion. Feeling the force of
that confusion, and the pressure to sort it out, is the impulse of philosophy.
- Moral reflection consists in seeking a fit between judgments we make and the principles we
affirm.
- Plato's point is that to grasp the meaning of justice and the nature of the good life, we
must rise above the prejudices and routines of everyday life.
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Chapter 1: Doing the Right Thing
- There are three different ways of thinking about justice (i.e. ways to approach the
distribution of goods):
1. Maximizing welfare
2. Respecting freedom
3. Promoting virtue
- The standard case for unfettered markets rests on two claims:
1. Markets promote the welfare of society as a whole by providing incentives for people to
work hard supplying the goods that other people want.
2. Markets respect individual freedom; rather than impose a certain value on goods and
services, markets let people choose for themselves what value to place on the things they
exchange.
- The virtue argument:
"Greed is a vice, a bad way of being, especially when it makes people oblivious to the
suffering of others. More than a personal vice, it is at odds with civic virtue. Excessive
greed is a vice that a good society should discourage if it can."
- It is not always simply about welfare and freedom. It is also about virtue - about cultivating
the attitudes and dispositions, the qualities of character, on which a good society depends.
- One of the greatest questions of political philosophy: Does a just society seek to promote
the virtue of its citizens?
- Aristotle teaches that justice means giving people what they deserve. And in order to
determine who deserve what, we have to determine what virtues are worthy of honour and
reward. Aristotle maintains that we can't figure out what just constitution is without first
reflecting the most desirable way of life. For him, law can't be neutral on questions of the
good life.
- Modern philosophers argue that the principles of justice that define our rights should not
rest on any particular conception of virtue, or of the best way to live. Instead, a just society
respects each person's freedom to choose his or her own conception of the good life.
- Most of our arguments are about promoting prosperity and respecting individual freedom,
on the surface. But underlying these arguments, we can glimpse another set of convictions
- about what virtues are worthy of honour and reward, and what way of life a good society
should promote.
- To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize -income and
wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honours. A just society
Page 1 of 15
, distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard
questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why.
- An example of a moral dilemma:
Some moral dilemmas arise from conflicting moral principles. For example, one principle that
comes into play in the trolley problem says we should save as many lives as possible, but
another says it is wrong to kill an innocent person, even for a good cause. Confronted with
a situation in which saving a number of lives depends on killing an innocent person, we
face a moral quandary. We must try to figure out which principle has greater weight, or is
more appropriate under the circumstances.
- Life in democratic societies is rife with disagreement about right and wrong, justice and
injustice (e.g. some favour abortions and other don't, some reject torture of terror suspects
and others don't).
- The book answers the question: How can we reason our way through the contested
terrain of justice and injustice, equality and inequality, individual rights and common
good?
- Moral reflection emerges naturally from an encounter with a hard moral question. We start
with an opinion about the right thing to do. Then we reflect on the reason fro our
conviction and seek out the principle on which it is based. Then, confronted with a
situation that confounds the principle, we are pitched into confusion. Feeling the force of
that confusion, and the pressure to sort it out, is the impulse of philosophy.
- Moral reflection consists in seeking a fit between judgments we make and the principles we
affirm.
- Plato's point is that to grasp the meaning of justice and the nature of the good life, we
must rise above the prejudices and routines of everyday life.
Page 2 of 15
