Michael Sandel Quotes


Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life.


Citations

Sandel, Michael J. Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009, p. 266.

Related Quotes

There was a March on Washington planned for 1942. However, the leaders were persuaded to call it off as the United States was in the midst of the Second World War. The military was segregated and so were the defense plants. FDR made some concessions regarding defense jobs but discrimination was still rampant. It would be 20 years later when the March actually took place with some of the same leaders organizing it.


Michael Sandel
Michael Sandel
  • Born: March 5, 1953
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Philosopher

Michael Joseph Sandel (/sænˈdɛl/; born 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the "most influential foreign figure of the year" 2011 (China Newsweek). He is also known for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982).