Make the complex simple

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Michael Sandel, the prestigious philosopher from Harvard University and recent winner of the Princess of Asturias 2018 in the social sciences category, passed through Madrid a couple of weeks ago to give a free, open-air conference on culture and democracy in promotion of new book by his own son, also the philosopher Adam Sandel. Of course, we are not going to talk about the centripetal force of nepotism from which, it seems, not even the great contemporary thinkers manage to escape, but about Sandel Sr.’s masterpiece and why, inexplicably, it is not part of the curriculum. philosophy of schools around the world.

It is about “Justice: Do We Do What We Should?”an instant classic that I came across by chance in yet another attempt to make peace with philosophy, a company that I have been pursuing for years and about which I have already had the opportunity to recount my misfortunes in these pages. What makes this title different from others of the same kind is the intrinsically pedagogical character that Sandel has printed on it, because more than a string of unintelligible lucubrations that seem brilliant mainly due to the state of confusion in which they immerse the reader, it What the author wanted was to take us by the hand through different theories of justice until we landed on his own.

Thus, we will take a guided tour of the basic utilitarianism of happiness maximization devised by Jeremy Bentham and its corresponding premium sequel engineered by John Stuart Mill; We will jump to the autonomous world of libertarians with a chapter on Robert Nozick’s theory of merit and his eternal dispute with the also immortal John Rawls; We will enjoy the clearest explanation I have ever read about Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative to later cover a modern analysis of Aristotle’s teleological doctrine; and, finally, after a small cameo by my personal genius, Alasdair MacIntyte, author of “After Virtue”, we will close the trip with a defense of communitarianism, Sandel’s favorite postulate.

Loaded with a large number of examples that still maintain their freshness today, such as the timeless “Tram Dilemma”, and that with Sandel’s handling of them end up becoming authentic ethical dilemmas that can be turned over in one’s head for a while. weeks, the author constantly puts us in the position of having to confront our own moral system to decide what we would do in certain situations. A healthy exercise in self-knowledge where there are no correct answers and in which each alternative is followed by an additional twist that brings us a little closer to understanding why we do what we do.

After this initiation into the universe sandeliano It will be impossible for the reader not to continue delving into the rest of his catalogue, fortunately widely available in Spanish, since the teacher has achieved by far the most difficult (and necessary) thing that is asked of any educator: to make the complex simple.

The post Making the complex simple appeared first on Minuto30.

2024-10-29 06:25:00
#complex #simple

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