Michael J. Sandel: Politics

Michael J. Sandel is American political philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on politics.

Michael J. Sandel: 42 quotes4 likes

“The Second World War supplied the occasion for the spending, and Keynesian economics supplied the rationale. But Keynesian fiscal policy had political appeal even before the war demonstrated its economic success. For unlike the various proposals for structural reform, such as vigorous antitrust action or national economic planning, Keynesian economics offered a way for the government to control the economy without having to choose among controversial views of the good society. Where earlier reformers had sought economic arrangements that would cultivate, citizens of a certain kind, Keynesians undertook no formative mission; they proposed simply to accept existing consumer preferences and to regulate the economy by manipulating aggregate demand.”

Michael J. Sandel

1. America's Search for a Public Philosophy
Public Philosophy (2005)

“Political philosophy seems often to reside at a distance from the world. Principles are one thing, politics another, and even our best efforts to live up to our ideals seldom fully succeed.”

Michael J. Sandel

Preface
Democracy's Discontent, 1998

“Political philosophy seems often to reside at a distance from the world. Principles are one thing, politics another, and even our best efforts to ‘live up’ to our ideals typically founder on the gap between theory and practice.But if political philosophy is unrealizable in one sense, it is unavoidable in another. This is the sense in which philosophy inhabits the world from the start; our practices and institutions are embodiments of theory.... for all our uncertainties about ultimate questions of political philosophy — of justice and value and the nature of the good life — the one thing we know is that we live some answer all the time.”

Michael J. Sandel

The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self, 1984

“But if political philosophy is unrealizable in one sense, it is unavoidable in another.”

Michael J. Sandel

Preface
Democracy's Discontent, 1998

“The advent of the new political economy marked a decisive moment in the demise of the republican strand of American politics and the rise of contemporary liberalism. According to this liberalism, government should be neutral as to conceptions of the good life, in order to respect persons as free and independent selves, capable of choosing their own ends. Keynesian fiscal policy both reflected this liberalism and deepened its hold on American public life. Although those who practiced Keynesian economics did not defend it in precisely these terms, the new political economy displayed two features of the liberalism that defines the procedural republic.”

Michael J. Sandel

1. America's Search for a Public Philosophy
Public Philosophy (2005)

“The liberalism with which I am concerned is a version of liberalism prominent in the moral and legal and political philosophy of the day: a liberalism in which the notions of justice, fairness, and individual rights play a central role, and which is indebted to Kant for much of its philosophical foundation.”

Michael J. Sandel book Liberalism and the Limits of Justice

Introduction
Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 1998

“Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.”

Michael J. Sandel

Chap. 2. Rights and the Neutral States
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

“The idea that freedom consists in our capacity to choose our ends finds prominent expression in our politics and law. Its province is not limited to those known as liberals rather than conservatives in American politics; it can be found across the political spectrum.”

Michael J. Sandel

Chap. 1. The Public Philosophy of Contemporary Liberalism
Democracy's Discontent (1996)