The Moral Limits of Markets

What Money Can't Buy

What Money Can't Buy is the Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller from 'the superstar philosopher', Michael Sandel 
 
Should we financially reward children for good marks? Is it ethical to pay people to donate organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons or selling citizenship? 
 
In recent decades, market values have impinged on almost every aspect of life - medicine, education, government, law, even family life. We have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. In What Money Can't Buy Michael Sandel asks: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? And how do we protect the things that really matter? 
 
'Brilliant, easily readable, beautifully delivered and often funny ... an indispensable book' David Aaronovitch, The Times 
 
'In a culture mesmerised by the market, Sandel's is the indispensable voice of reason' John Gray, New Statesman 
 
'Provocative and intellectually suggestive ... little less than a wake-up call' Rowan Williams, Prospect 
 
'A star philosopher ... entertaining and provocative' Diane Coyle, Independent 
 
'Let's hope that What Money Can't Buy, by being so patient and accumulative in its argument and examples, marks a permanent shift in these debates' John Lanchester, Guardian 
 
Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University. His legendary 'Justice' course is the first Harvard course made freely available online (www.JusticeHarvard.org) and on television. Hiss work has been translated into 15 languages and been the subject of television series in the U.K., the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and the Middle East. He has delivered the Tanner Lectures at Oxford and been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Paris. In 2010, China Newsweek named him the "most influential foreign figure of the year" in China. Sandel was the 2009 BBC Reith Lecturer, and his most recent book Justice is an international bestseller.

One of the most popular teachers in the world

Sandel is touching something deep in both Boston and Beijing

The most influential foreign figure of the year

Few philosophers are compared to rock stars or TV celebrities, but that's the kind of popularity Michael Sandel enjoys in Japan

One of the world's most interesting political philosophers

What Money Can't Buy selected by the Guardian as a literary highlight for 2012

America's best-known contemporary political philosopher ... the most famous professor in the world right now... the man is an academic rock star [but] instead of making it all serious and formidable, Sandel makes it light and easy to grasp

An exquisitely reasoned, skillfully written treatise on big issues of everyday life

Sandel is probably the world's most relevant living philosopher

Mr Sandel is pointing out [a] quite profound change in society

Provocative and intellectually suggestive ... amply researched and presented with exemplary clarity, [it] is weighty indeed - little less than a wake-up call to recognise our desperate need to rediscover some intelligible way of talking about humanity

Brilliant, easily readable, beautifully delivered and often funny ... an indispensable book

Poring through Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel's new book ... I found myself over and over again turning pages and saying, "I had no idea." I had no idea that in the year 2000 ... "a Russian rocket emblazoned with a giant Pizza Hut logo carried advertising into outer space," or that in 2001, the British novelist Fay Weldon wrote a book commissioned by the jewelry company Bulgari ...  I knew that stadiums are now named for corporations, but had no idea that now "even sliding into home is a corporate-sponsored event" ... I had no idea that in 2001 an elementary school in New Jersey became America's first public school "to sell naming rights to a corporate sponsor"

A vivid illustration ... Let's hope that What Money Can't Buy, by being so patient and so accumulative in its argument and its examples, marks a permanent shift in these debates

In a culture mesmerised by the market, Sandel's is the indispensable voice of reason ... if we ... bring basic values into political life in the way that Sandel suggests, at least we won't be stuck with the dreary market orthodoxies that he has so elegantly demolished

What Money Can't Buy is replete with examples of what money can, in fact, buy ... Sandel has a genius for showing why such changes are deeply important

Michael Sandel ... is currently the most effective communicator of ideas in English

Sandel, the most famous teacher of philosophy in the world, has shown that it is possible to take philosophy into the public square without insulting the public's intelligence

A book that can persuade people that the rules of the economy don't just reflect our values, they help to determine them

Fascinating exploration of the alarming encroachment of market philosophy on so many aspects of our lives

Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University. His legendary 'Justice' course is the first Harvard course made freely available online (www.JusticeHarvard.org) and on television. Hiss work has been translated into 15 languages and been the subject of television series in the U.K., the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and the Middle East. He has delivered the Tanner Lectures at Oxford and been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Paris. In 2010, China Newsweek named him the "most influential foreign figure of the year" in China. Sandel was the 2009 BBC Reith Lecturer, and his most recent book Justice is an international bestseller.

Should we financially reward children for good marks? Is it ethical to pay people to donate organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons or selling citizenship? 
 
In recent decades, market values have impinged on almost every aspect of life - medicine, education, government, law, even family life. We have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. In What Money Can't Buy Michael Sandel asks: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? And how do we protect the things that really matter?

What's the Right Thing to Do?

Justice

Michael Sandel's Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? invites readers of all ages and political persuasions on a journey of moral reflection, and shows how reasoned debate can illuminate our lives. 
 
Is it always wrong to lie? 
Should there be limits to personal freedom? 
Can killing sometimes be justified? 
Is the free market fair? 
What is the right thing to do? 
 
Questions like these are at the heart of our lives. In this acclaimed book Michael Sandel - BBC Reith Lecturer and the Harvard professor whose 'Justice' course has become world famous - gives us a lively and accessible introduction to the intersection of politics and philosophy. He helps us think our way through such hotly contested issues as equal rights, democracy, euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage, as well as the ethical dilemmas we face every day. 
 
'One of the most popular teachers in the world' - Observer 
 
'Enormously refreshing ... Michael Sandel transforms moral philosophy by putting it at the heart of civic debate' - New Statesman 
 
'One of the world's most interesting political philosophers' - Guardian 
 
'Spellbinding' - The Nation

Justice is a lucid and compelling analysis of our current moral dilemmas, which argues for a new commitment to citizenship and the common good

In the beautifully concise explanations of American philosopher Michael Sandel, I see great insight into our current predicaments. If any political reckoning is on its way . . . then perhaps it might come from the philosophy department of Harvard

Michael Sandel, perhaps the most prominent college professor in America,...practices the best kind of academic populism, managing to simplify John Stuart Mill and John Rawls without being simplistic. But Sandel is best at what he calls bringing 'moral clarity to the alternatives we confront as democratic citizens'.... He ends up clarifying a basic political divide - not between left and right, but between those who recognize nothing greater than individual rights and choices, and those who affirm a 'politics of the common good,' rooted in moral beliefs that can't be ignored

Michael Sandel transforms moral philosophy by putting it at the heart of civic debate....Sandel's insistence on the inescapably ethical character of political debate is enormously refreshing

A spellbinding philosopher.... For Michael Sandel, justice is not a spectator sport.... He is calling for nothing less than a reinvigoration of citizenship

An ambitious and an appealing idea. Intriguingly, I find myself persuaded that it might well be worth a try

More than exhilarating; exciting in its ability to persuade this student/reader, time and again, that the principle now being invoked-on this page, in this chapter-is the one to deliver the sufficiently inclusive guide to the making of a decent life

Sandel explains theories of justice...with clarity and immediacy; the ideas of Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Robert Nozick and John Rawls have rarely, if ever, been set out as accessibly... In terms we can all understand, Justice confronts us with the concepts that lurk, so often unacknowledged, beneath our conflicts

This book is absolutely indispensable for anyone who wants to be a good citizen. It shows how to balance competing values, a talent our nation desperately needs nowadays

Walter Isaacson, author of 'Benjamin Franklin: An American Life'

Sandel dazzles in this sweeping survey of hot topics.... Erudite, conversational and deeply humane, this is truly transformative reading

Hard cases may make bad laws, but in Michael Sandel's hands they produce some cool philosophy.... Justice is a timely plea for us to desist from political bickering and see if we can have a sensible discussion about what sort of society we really want to live in

A road map for negotiating modern moral dilemmas... For those seeking a short course through moral philosophy from a witty writer, fast on his feet, and nimble with his pen, this thin volume is difficult to beat

There have been various attempts over the decades to bury moral philosophy -- to dismiss convictions about right and wrong as cultural prejudices, or secretions of the brain, or matters so personal they shouldn't even affect our private lives. But moral questions always return, as puzzles and as tragedies. Would we push a hefty man onto a railroad track to save the lives of five others? Should Petty Officer 1st Class Marcus Luttrell, in June of 2005, have executed a group of Afghan goatherds who, having stumbled on his position, might inform the enemy about his unit? (Luttrell let them go, the Taliban attacked, and three of his comrades died.) These examples and others -- price-gouging after Hurricane Katrina, affirmative action, gay marriage -- are all grist for the teaching of Michael Sandel, perhaps the most prominent college professor in America. His popular class at Harvard -- Moral Reasoning 22: Justice -- attracts about a sixth of all undergraduates. For those lacking $49,000 a year in tuition and board, he has written Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? which has been further translated into a PBS series and a Web site, JusticeHarvard.org

Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at the University of Harvard. Sandel's legendary 'Justice' course is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard. In 2007, Harvard made Sandel's course available to alumni around the world through webstreaming and podcasting. Over 5,000 participants signed up, and Harvard Clubs from Mexico to Australia organized local discussion groups in connection with the course. In May 2007, Sandel delivered a series of lectures at major universities in China and he has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Paris. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. Sandel is the author of many books and has previously written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic and the New York Times. He was the 2009 BBC Reith Lecturer.

Considering the role of justice in our society and our lives, Michael Sandel reveals how an understanding of philosophy can help to make sense of politics, religion, morality - and our own convictions. Breaking down hotly contested issues, from abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage, to patriotism, dissent and affirmative action, Sandel shows how the biggest questions in our civic life can be broken down and illuminated through reasoned debate. Justice promises to take readers - of all ages and political persuasions - on an exhilarating journey to confront today's political and moral controversies in a fresh and enlightening way.

Michael J. Sandel

Sandel is the most important and influential living philosopher.

The Tyranny of Merit is original, lively and no mere critique: unlike many others who have written on the "sorting" of society into winners and losers, Sandel produces a persuasive argument about the kind of community we should seek ... The Tyranny of Merit is an important work, and makes a profound point that our leaders would do well to understand.

Engaging and timely... an insightful critique of where our societies went wrong... that will help us to heal our divided societies

He is good at dismantling the cheap language of recent politics... compelling, too, in diagnosing the growing use of discriminatory language

Credentialism is the last acceptable prejudice... blends fact, analysis and opinion in eminently readable non-fiction

well-argued, clear, and nicely timed to appeal to the growing disillusionment with meritocracy.

"rich in moral exhortation - the kind that does your soul good"

What's Become of the Common Good?

These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try". And the consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled populist protest, with the triumph of Brexit and election of Donald Trump. 
 
Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the polarized politics of our time, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalisation and rising inequality. Sandel highlights the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility, and more hospitable to a politics of the common good.

Michael J. Sandel

Praise for The Tyranny of Merit

Sandel is the most important and influential living philosopher.

The Tyranny of Merit is original, lively and no mere critique: unlike many others who have written on the "sorting" of society into winners and losers, Sandel produces a persuasive argument about the kind of ...

Engaging and timely... an insightful critique of where our societies went wrong... that will help us to heal our divided societies

Sandel is the most important and influential living philosopher.

The Tyranny of Merit is original, lively and no mere critique: unlike many others who have written on the "sorting" of society into winners and losers, Sandel produces a persuasive argument about the kind of ...

Engaging and timely... an insightful critique of where our societies went wrong... that will help us to heal our divided societies

Sandel is the most important and influential living philosopher.

The Tyranny of Merit is original, lively and no mere critique: unlike many others who have written on the "sorting" of society into winners and losers, Sandel produces a persuasive argument about the kind of ...

Engaging and timely... an insightful critique of where our societies went wrong... that will help us to heal our divided societies

Books by Michael J. Sandel

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