Morals Class Is Starting; Please Pass the Popcorn (not RW morals)

[Are_grits_groceries]

Many of the 14,000 or so students who have taken Harvard’s wildly popular course “Justice” with Michael J. Sandel over the years have heard the rumor that their professor has a television avatar: Montgomery Burns, Homer Simpson’s soulless ghoul of a boss at Springfield’s nuclear power plant.

The joke, of course, is that Mr. Sandel — who at one time or another taught several future writers for Fox’s “Simpsons” and shares a receding hairline with the evil-minded cartoon character — is the anti-Burns, a moral philosopher who has devoted his life to pondering what is the right thing to do.
<snip>
“The difficulty in this course is in teaching what you already know,” he tells his students. “It works by taking what we know from familiar, unquestioned settings and making it strange.”

Would you switch a runaway trolley from one track to another if it meant killing one person instead of five? Would it be just as moral to push a person in front of the speeding trolley to stop it and save the five? What about a surgeon killing one healthy person and using his organs so that five people who needed organ transplants could live? Is that moral? Why not?

“In a way, the book and the course try to model what public discourse would be like if it were more morally ambitious than it is,” Mr. Sandel said. “The title is ‘Justice,’ but in a way its subject is citizenship.”

Mr. Sandel emphasizes that “the aim is not to try to persuade students, but to equip them to become politically minded citizens.”
<snip>
In this twelve 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 results are often surprising, revealing that important moral questions are never black and white.
This course also addresses the hot topics of our day—affirmative action, same-sex marriage, patriotism and rights—and Sandel shows us that we can revisit familiar controversies with a fresh perspective.

Web site: http://justiceharvard.org/

Discussion is an essential part of the course, Mr. Sandel said, which is why the Web site, justiceharvard.org, offers beginner and advanced discussion guides. The first episode deals with utilitarianism, which maintains we should always do whatever will produce the greatest amount of happiness. “But is that right?,” the guide asks.

Justice course preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajlZMdPkKE

01 The Moral Side of Murder / The Case for Cannibalism
watch episode | view episode summary

02 Putting a Price Tag on Life / How to Measure Pleasure
watch episode | view episode summary

03 Free to Choose / Who Owns Me?
available 10.01

04 This Land is my Land / Consenting Adults
available 10.08

05 Hired Guns? / For Sale: Motherhood
available 10.15

06 Mind Your Motive / The Supreme Principle of Morality
available 10.22

07 A Lesson in Lying / A Deal is a Deal
available 10.29

08 What’s a Fair Start? / What Do We Deserve?
available 11.05

09 Arguing Affirmative Action / What's the Purpose?
available 11.12

10 The Good Citizen / Freedom vs. Fit
available 11.19

11 The Claims of Community / Where Our Loyalty Lies"
available 11.26

12 Debating Same-sex Marriage / The Good Life
available 12.03
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/television/26sandel.html?pagewanted=1&ref=books

This looks interesting. Congress should have to watch it. Of course if some of them had to think, they would blow their circuit.

[enlightenment]

1. Looks fascinating. Thank you for posting! nt

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. I think it's worth an episode or two! nt

[silverweb]

2. Bookmarked for later perusal.

Looks fascinating. Thanks!

[Chulanowa]

3. I remember the "killing one person to save five" question

In the case of the trolley, it was generally decided that diverting the track is morally acceptable if it kills one person instead of five, but that throwing a person in front of it to stop it is worse than letting it continue into those five. The consensus seems to be that actively causing the death of someone is immoral no matter the reasons for doing so, while engaging in an act that results in death as a secondary effect is morally acceptable if done for a greater reason - saving five people for instance.

Interestingly if I recall correctly, it didn't matter much what the makeup of any of the groups was, it ended up the same - save the five by killing one, so long as you are not directly causing that one's death.

[imdjh]

4. I disagree. I think most important moral questions are black and white, we simply don't accept it.

Most of the time, once you sort out the equation, as you would any other, the answer seems clear. We might not like the answer, the answer might not agree with our personal point of view, but we know what the answer is.

Or we can avoid it, as we sometimes do around here to keep the peace. That is perhaps the most corrupt process of all.