Harvard Professor Michael Sandel on Justice
For Christians who think the Bible has the answer please get and read Michael Sandel's book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?. In this link is a video where you can see him ask some difficult questions. How does the Bible answer them? Is the Bible even helpful? Be sure to get and read his book of readings too.
8 comments:
Perhaps they should read it alongside Nicholas Wolterstorff's recent Justice: Rights and Wrongs.
Joshua, as a Christian in a review for a seminary journal I trashed Wolterstorff's earlier book Until Justice and Peace Embrace. The fact that Christians disagree, sometimes vehemently over these issues, does not produce confidence that the Bible helps solve these issues, correct? And I am sure to disagree vehemently with this new book as a skeptic as well.
You ask,
The fact that Christians disagree, sometimes vehemently over these issues, does not produce confidence that the Bible helps solve these issues, correct?
In many case, disagreement about a proposition does not itself lend probability to that proposition. However, in some cases complete agreement could be indicative of a lack of critical activity, or a prevalence of dogmatism, etc., so a case could be made that disagreement doesn't hurt either (and maybe is even indicative of rational discourse). But what is your point? Are you suggesting that people disagreeing over the Bible being a "help" makes it likely that the Bible is not a help? How unlucky for all statements about which people disagree.
Lastly, here is the most likely outcome of Wolterstorff's book: It will give positive well-considered reasons for its conclusions. The end. That's why I mentioned it.
Notice also that, especially in ethical philosophy, widespread disagreement (on your account of disagreement, not mine) takes away our confidence that anything, whether it is human cognitive powers or religion, will help us solve these issues.
The question I had asked was how the Bible helps solve the questions Professor Sandel asks. You might better take a look at the questions before you say the Bible helps answer them. And you might also take a good look at the history of ethical and political thinking in the church down through the ages before you claim someone such as Wolterstorff has solved them.
I do in fact think widespread disagreement on a question means that there is less evidence to solve it. Therefore one must be less dogmatic when answering it. Who disagrees with gravity, right? But when it comes to religion or justice one must have a proportionately less dogmatic posture when affirming an answer to the degree people disagree with each other.
So I am indeed suggesting that people disagreeing over the Bible being a "help" makes it likely that the Bible is not a help since it purportedly comes from God who should know how to effectively communicate to us. That is the argument in a chapter of mine in "The Christian Delusion." Because God did not effectively communicate his will in the canonical Bible eight millions killed each other in the later part of the 16th century into the 17th century. It was a Christian bloodbath over discerning the divine will. Think Thirty Years War here. And so just because people disagree with themselves over issues doesn't touch the question of why God didn't communicate so that they'd know what his will was. Christians killed each other over the Eucharist when all Jesus had to say was "I'm just speaking figuratively folks, not literally. This is not literally my body and blood."
You might better take a look at the questions before you say the Bible helps answer them.
Who are you talking to? Wolterstorff?
Wolterstorff's book is an example of a serious philosophical defense of the view that the "biblical" understanding of justice is a better foundation than various secular proposals, of which the book you advertise is one. This shouldn't cause any fuss; likewise, I wouldn't cause fuss by pointing out that the Michael Sandel is commenting on an issue there is widespread disagreement about. I wouldn't do this because it doesn't matter.
I do in fact think widespread disagreement on a question means that there is less evidence to solve it.
Since I said nothing about the relationship between disagreement and evidence, I won't pursue this one. I wonder whether you have any thoughts on what I do mention, however.
I'm also not interested in the statements about how we can somehow infer that because the Bible is "from God" (in what sense? Birds are from God too), therefore people won't kill each other in the 17th century, because they'll read Genesis or something. Sam Harris makes a similarly confused case. There are plenty of ways you can construe the Bible's purpose whereby it follows that the Bible has not achieved its purpose.
John,
This does seem like an interesting book and one I'll put on my Amazon wishlist. However, I failed to see anything in the video that is so incredibly mind-blowing as if to shred the Bible's and Christianity's credibility on tough moral issues. Perhaps you could explain.
Further, doesn't the very question "What's the Right Thing to Do?" presuppose that there is an objective right and wrong? You just simply can't have that in an atheistic worldview so I would ask, how does atheism answer any of these questions? Is atheism even helpful?
Thomas says there can be no objective right and wrong in an atheistic worldview. No one who has made even a feeble attempt to understand the naturalist worldview would make such a boneheaded statement. How did your invisible man in the sky acquire his objective morality? Read a book,GOOGLE, do something besides make ignorant comments, Thomas.
You can watch some (more or less) full episodes of Sandel's Justice course here.
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