Reddit Reddit reviews Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

We found 24 Reddit comments about Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
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24 Reddit comments about Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?:

u/Crest_of_Tull · 26 pointsr/booksuggestions

Hey, no problem: Here's a couple I really enjoyed that helped me learn how to really articulate what I think and understand what others were saying about politics in those sorts of discussions:

  1. The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. This contrasts how liberals and conservatives think about politics in a way that I think makes sense of what can often be really frustrating arguments.
  2. Justice by Michael Sandel. This walks you through different ways you can reason about politics so that you can develop sharper and more consistent opinions.
u/adamleng · 19 pointsr/TheGoodPlace

I haven't read What We Owe to Each Other, but from what I'm familiar with it's an attempt by Scanlon to explain and justify his particular brand of moral contractualism, and not an introductory book on ethics and moral philosophy. I believe Chidi is a contractualist and deontologist so it makes sense why he would like that book (as a philosophy professor), but that's just one area of moral philosophy.

One of the problems with philosophy is that the works are intended for students and educated audiences and not laymen, so most of the books for example that I read when I first started college (and books that you'll find listed in "good for beginners" lists) like Nicomachean Ethics and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals I would never, ever recommend to a general audience. They're full of confusing philosophy terminology and long, multi-stage logical arguments.

Instead I highly recommend what I suspect you're really looking for in Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel. While clearly aimed at an American audience, it's a very good and more importantly very readable general introduction to ethics and the varying schools of thought in the field. It's a really short read for a philosophy text and is peppered with real-life examples and dilemmas.

Another book that I actually read recently and quite enjoyed is A Concise Introduction to Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau. Unfortunately, this one is intended for a student audience and is more of a textbook (complete with end of chapter quizzes), but it goes really broad and over not just all the big schools of ethics but also the fundamentals of moral reasoning, and metaethics and natural law (two things that don't always show up in ethics books which are usually about normative ethics).

u/sethinthebox · 18 pointsr/slatestarcodex

I took my SJ class as an online course around 2010 or so. It was pretty milquetoast in comparison to yours and mostly technical. I think the most interesting stuff to me were the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham vs. John Stuart Mill. We used the book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do by Michael Sandel

I do not know what the birdcage analogy is and there was no discussion, I recall, about agents, allies, and accomplices.

u/SnackPatrol · 14 pointsr/HumansBeingBros

If anyone reading this guy's comment finds this sort of stuff interesting, I would highly, highly recommend this book on Morality, Justice, Society, that sort of thing. This comment reminded me of this guy's writing style & I couldn't put this thing down:

Justice by Michael J. Sandel

u/1066443507 · 6 pointsr/askphilosophy

It depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want a clear, intro-level overview of the subject, check out Shafer-Landau's Fundamental's of Ethics. It's a fantastic place to start, and it is the book I recommend if you really want to understand the subject and plan to read outside the context of a class.

If you want primary texts, I suggest that you get the book's companion, The Ethical Life.

If you want a textbook that is a little shorter and more engaging, check out Rachels' The Elements of Moral Philosophy.

If you want an introduction that's informative and fun to read but less informative than the Rachels or the Shafer-Landau, check out Sandel's Justice. You can also watch his Justice lectures online. This book, as opposed to the other two, is written for a popular audience.

u/rysama · 5 pointsr/askphilosophy

I really enjoy Justice by Michale Sandel. It's a series of riveting lectures that serve as a great entry into philosophy through ethics and justice.

You can also read his book.

u/Nat1boi · 5 pointsr/askphilosophy

John Rawls may be a good place for you to start for a "modern" perspective (look here first: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/ )

Michael Sandel wrote a pretty readable book based off his popular harvard course on the topic. You can find the book here ( https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508 ) or even just check out the course itself here ( http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/ )

​

Hope this helps! This isn't my area of interest but I have come across them along the way.

u/judgemebymyusername · 3 pointsr/PoliticalDiscussion

>When Justice has been achieved and society is perfect.

Define justice, and define perfect. (Asking this question reminds me of this awesome book http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508 )

Here's one for you

>Progressives are the conservatives of the future.

u/hammiesink · 3 pointsr/DebateReligion

I've heard good things about Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do by Michael Sandel. There is a video of his Harvard class floating around somewhere.

Haven't read it, though, so I dunno...

u/col8lok8 · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

I would recommend reading Michael Sandel’s book Justice and at the same time getting the Justice reader (book of selected readings in political philosophy) put together by Sandel, and watching Sandel’s online lecture series entitled Justice.

Justice book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374532508/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0374532508

Justice reader:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195335120/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0195335120

Justice online lecture series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL30C13C91CFFEFEA6

u/AnythingApplied · 2 pointsr/Android

Some people take classes to punch a career ticket, but there are plenty of people that take classes just to learn.

I currently am taking a justice course taught at Harvard on moral philosophy. There is even an associated book you can read if you would like that pretty much covers the same material in the same order as the class, but I'm watching the lectures because I learn better that way. Moral philosophy has no chance of increasing my completely unrelated career and honestly I wouldn't even want to take my career in that direction if given the option, because I am just learning as a hobby for fun. I am also going through a game theory course at yale.

Right now I just casually watch lectures in my free time, but there are a few subjects I would like to tackle that will probably involve actually doing homework like differential equations, topology, and algorithms. Just reading a book doesn't cut it because you actually have to participate in subjects like that to fully understand them. And again, I plan on doing those just for fun because I believe learning is a life long experience.

u/MyShitsFuckedDown2 · 2 pointsr/askphilosophy

Do you have a specific interest? Otherwise a general introduction like Think, Problems of Philosophy, or Justice are all well regarded. Though, all have their strengths and weaknesses. There are tons of accessible introductions though and depending on your interests it might be better to use one rather than another. All of those are fairly general

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Tariki. I love this book because it articulates a philosophy I already felt in my heart.

Guns, Germs, and Steel. A whirlwind, eye-opening take on world history and how we really got to where we are today. Useful for understanding your country's place in the world. It's counterpart, Collapse, is also a great read. It's about how societies fall.

Justice. I'm an unabashed liberal who has wrestled with libertarian ideas lately. I wanted to read and learn more about critiques of libertarian ideas and this is a great book, not just for that, but for the broader understanding of society, justice, and how a proper society should function.

Reunion. A beautiful love story from a male point of view. I strongly identify with the protagonist for some reason.

u/theselfescaping · 2 pointsr/logh

Democratic theory, which is a study area of political science, comes down to the question, "What is good?"

All our arguments are "normative," we are expressing a value or belief about what is good.

If we define politics as "a relationship of power between two or more individuals," then we can see how fragile all our relationships are, including between a person and their government.

Who do we decide to be? Where were we born? Why did we do something?

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is why I went to law school and why I work in government now.

If you are interested in different political theories, Justice by Michael Sandel and Political Philosophy by Ronald Beiner compare different political theorists or political philosophers, and are great companion pieces to LOGH.

u/sweetbitters · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

Justice might be a good place to start. Michael Sandel is a professor at Harvard and the class this book is based on is apparently one of the more popular undergraduate classes. I think a lot of his lectures are on Youtube if you want to get a sense of his style before buying.

I haven't read the book, but I did try his edX class during the spring. Very accessible, but thought provoking at the same time.

u/balaams-donkey · 1 pointr/worldnews

Great read on this topic. Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

u/Moontouch · 1 pointr/worldnews

No you don't even have a basic idea. Nobody is asking for a 200 framework manifesto, but if it literally took me 2 seconds to think up a problem that you can't solve (and that I contend is logically impossible to solve through your system) then that says much about your "idea."

I really recommend that you read up on a little bit of moral philosophy and ethics (like the following) so you can see why you're running on an almost 4,000 year old OS. What presenting a horse and carriage would be to a technology show today is what your system is to ethics today. Since then, we've developed numerous other systems that have been proven to be objectively better for the well-being of society than retribution (yours). One of them is called utilitarianism, and it has given birth to systems of justice like the Norwegian one in this article that's called restorative justice. In their system punishment is irrelevant but fixing the criminal and making peace with the victims is. For example, if a house robber robs an innocent man's house, they're jailed for however longer until we know that it's a fact they won't ever rob again, be it 2 or 20 years. Then once they are out they have to work for their victim, like do their yard work for years, and then eventually make peace with their victim.

Because of this Norway has dramatically less crime than we do and the whole society's well-being is higher than ours. Norwegians also support this system, including all the victims of criminals. So in essence, if you lived in Norway and wanted to change it to your ancient system you would literally be working to make their society a worse place, just like a criminal. See the moral problem? The only logical escape is to say that you don't care for what's good for society, specifically reduce crime and increase everybody's happiness and well-being.

u/yeahiknow3 · 1 pointr/PoliticalPhilosophy

I've read that one, and it's ok. A slightly better, more engaging introduction to Political Philosophy would be Michael Sandel's Justice. It was written for his eponymous Harvard course, which is fantastic and available online here.

u/blah_kesto · 1 pointr/Ethics

"Justice: What's the right thing to do?" by Michael Sandel is a good book for an overview of different approaches to ethics.

"Practical Ethics" by Peter Singer is the one that really first made me think there's good reason to pick a side.

u/bluefootedpig · 1 pointr/Libertarian

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? (https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508)

It will go over the various viewpoints, where they originate from, and how they compare to others.

u/redditacct · 1 pointr/reddit.com

Sorry, it was Colbert, sounds like the same stuff you are interested in:
http://www.justiceharvard.org/2011/07/1456/
http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508/

u/FistOfNietzsche · 1 pointr/nihilism

Aww thanks. I definitely encounter people who have more formal training and I'm just blown away by their vocabulary and some of the concepts they present. I like to try to simplify difficult concepts into things that are more easily digested.

Philosophers are not known for being accessible in their writing. There's a ton of people out there like me who try to make philosophy more accessible.

I've listened to podcasts that delve into singular ideas. I find these particularly enlightening. I listened to Ayn Rand audiobooks (lol). I've bought used college textbooks for next to nothing, because once teachers stop using that edition nobody wants them. I've read 3 different people who analyzed Nietzsche's work because he's so unapproachable in writing style. I really love Nietzsche because he would mirror my own thoughts and sometimes take me to the next level and sometimes I feel I'd be at the next level of his thoughts.

I wish I remembered all the good podcast/audio stuff to recommend for ya. For more accessible books, Bernard Reginster's "The Affirmation of Life" was a really good analysis of Nietzsche. It's good because he would essentially take one concept Nietzsche presented and just really hammer it out in a more logical form before moving onto the next. Moral philosophy is most fascinating to me. I highly recommend Michael Sandel's Justice for a really great overview of positions with great examples and things to think about.

u/nolsen01 · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

I'm assuming you're American.

The Basics of American Politics together with Politics in Action and some regular political news reading would be a firm introduction to politics.

If you want to dig deep, then buy some books on economics and history. One thing I haven't seen in the answers yet is philosophy. It may not sound important, but it very much is. I would recommend Justice by Michael Sandel. It is a great introduction to different moral theories and ties them together with politics quite well. I left the book finally understanding why conservatives and liberals think the way they do.

Those 3 books should also introduce you to more resources that will take you down as far as you'd like to go.