Justice with Michael Sandel

tv show

poster for Justice with Michael Sandel

12 total episodes

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1 seasons

First Aired September 09, 2009

Genres:

Overview

Justice is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on public television. In this 12-part series, college professor Michael Sandel challenges us with hard moral dilemmas and invites us to ponder the right thing to do-in politics and in our everyday lives.

tv poster

Putting a Price Tag on Life/How to Measure Pleasure

Season 1 - Episode 2 - 0h 0m

Air Date

September 09, 2009

Overview

Today, companies and governments often use Jeremy Benthams utilitarian logic under the name of cost-benefit analysis. Sandel presents some contemporary cases in which cost-benefit analysis was used to put a dollar value on human lie. The cases give rise to several objections to the utilitarian logic of seeking the greatest good for the greatest number. Should we always give more weight to the happiness of a majority, even if the majority is cruel or ignoble? Is it possible to sum up and compare all values using a common measure like money?