Michael Sandel on Justice - Philosophy Gets Its Virtual Socrates

Michael Sandel's Justice website is a superb example of how academics can use the Internet to reach out to a world audience. Based on his renowned Harvard lecture course, it combines slick recordings of his 12 lectures (first 3 available already via a YouTube link) - which are also being broadcast on public service TV in the States - with associated reading lists, back up material discussion groups, etc. And his new book: Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? Eventually all academics should be able to create resources like this...and the exclusive and insular idea of a University (symbolised by those Oxbridge colleges with high walls and gatekeepers) can evolve. Although he believes the website isn't a full substitute for sitting in that lecture theatre in Harvard, it is as close as most people will get to being there, and certainly one of the most important attempts to bring philosophical debate to a wider audience in recent years. Some of Hubert Dreyfus' worries about virtual learning may still apply, but the experience probably beats what most university students get these days in the lower-ranking colleges.

In the UK, many of us still look back fondly to Bryan Magee's BBC television series 'Men of Ideas' (not a title that would work today) and 'The Great Philosophers' (search 'Bryan Magee' in YouTube for long extracts), but since then, apart from  Michael Ignatieff's interviews with thinkers, philosophy on television hasn't really achieved what it might have done (instead we've got the sugared pill of biographical sketches which tend to play down the ideas, or else philosophy lite, or philosophy as self-help). TED.com's popularity, though, should make those commissioners realize the appeal of dynamic speakers presenting ideas they believe in.

It helps, of course, that Sandel is an excellent communicator, engaging in a quasi-Socratic dialogue with questioners even in a large lecture group. In fact, his presentation is so good, that it is easy to be drawn into his worldview (as an antidote, read Michael Sandel Wants To Talk To You About Justice which includes some interesting pointers about where he is coming from and why some philosophers disagree quite strongly with his approach).

I've interviewed Michael Sandel twice - for the podcasts Ethics Bites and Philosophy Bites

Michael Sandel interview on Genetic Enhancement in Sport

Michael Sandel interview on What Shouldn't Be Sold

Sandel gave the 2009 Reith Lecture Series on the theme of 'A New Citizenship' (basically, the themes from his Justice course). You can listen to all 4 Reith lectures here.

Comments

[Mike]

This is a great lecture series. (I've already watched some of the lectures, and I'm anxious to see the rest.) As always, thank you for posting the useful information. While reading your comments, though, I was troubled by some of the unstated implications of your view of a future. You say that, "Eventually all academics should be able to create resources like this...", but that begs the question: When it fully comes to pass, how large (and how well-paid) will the group of "all academics" be?

I'm a photojournalist, and I remember vividly how a decade ago, when the internet was gaining steam, we were all told there was nothing to fear -- that the internet was creating a totally new market, so even if internet usage fees for our work were miniscule, they would be multiplied many times because there were a myriad of websites, and it would all be gravy anyway because the old magazine market would still be there. We were entering a golden age for journalists! Of course, just the opposite has happened. The old market collapsed and now there are fewer of us who are able to make a living. Our ability to assert our copyright has been terribly undercut, and the principles underlying a fee structure that had been built up over more than half a century completely fell apart in only a few years. And now the entire newspaper industry is collapsing! It's ironic that, in an "information age," professional journalists are being decimated.

So when videotaped lectures and distance education really take off, how many human beings will be able to afford spending their lives in the pursuit of knowledge? (And what will this mean for the future of knowledge?) I'm afraid the same thing that happened in journalism will soon happen in academia. There will jubilant cheers by some praising the democratization of learning, and there will be enormous suffering by those trying to dedicate their lives to it.