{ What’s The Right Thing To Do? } A Comparative Statement
via [ Harvard Ethics Course ] By Michael Sandel
About Justice:
Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history. Nearly one thousand students pack Harvard’s historic Sanders Theatre to hear Professor Sandel talk about justice, equality, democracy, and citizenship. Now it’s your turn to take the same journey in moral reflection that has captivated more than 14,000 students, as Harvard opens its classroom to the world.
This course aims to help viewers become more critically minded thinkers about the moral decisions we all face in our everyday lives.
In this 12-part series, Sandel challenges us with difficult moral dilemmas and asks our opinion about the right thing to do.
He then asks us to examine our answers in the light of new scenarios. The result is often surprising, revealing that important moral questions are never black and white.
Sorting out these contradictions sharpens our own moral convictions and gives us the moral clarity to better understand the opposing views we confront in a democracy.
To me this is ethics as entertainment. Granted, I didn’t watch all of it, but based on what I did watch, that’s what it seems to be. Dumbing down ethics is not what we need more of.
Take an issue. Peck at it from this side. Peck at it from that side. Resculpt it. Use a little sophistry to split the difference.
We have too much of that in this world already. That’s not the kind of ethics we need more of.
“Ethics as Entertainment” - Your right on. I too feel there is something very seriously wrong with this course and yeah, even at Harvard, or perhaps especially because it is at Harvard (with high production cost), there is a whole lot of fat in this sausage.
When it comes to addressing moral issues, I feel like I’ve been living in a desert for the past 20-years and I found this as some comfort for a public dialogue, but your right. For a College course at Harvard it really lacks rigor.