Thoughts on morality

Kate Chisholm

Wednesday, 17th June 2009

It’s not often that by chance you tune in to one of the annual Reith Lectures (Radio Four) and find what you’re hearing so gripping that you actually stay with it.

It’s not often that by chance you tune in to one of the annual Reith Lectures (Radio Four) and find what you’re hearing so gripping that you actually stay with it. The brain is willing, but not always obedient to the demands of listening to dense torrents of words by some of the Western world’s biggest eggheads. But this year’s topic, A New Citizenship, is so of-the-moment and this year’s professor, Michael Sandel, has such an ability to adapt his ideas to the muddle-headed logic by which us lesser mortals operate that he hooked me in while brushing my teeth on Saturday night.

Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University, and for 30 years has been exploring the concept of ‘Justice’ and how to balance the rights of the individual against the needs of the community. His intention is to teach his students the thoughts of dead philosophers but also to challenge received ideas about the common good and how to achieve it. In his first lecture for the BBC he talked about ‘Markets and Morality’, questioning the assumptions of the last 30 years that market incentives can solve social problems.

The lecture itself was so refreshingly common-sensical; like a breath of fresh air amid the sulphurous fumes of the last few weeks of expense accounts and political skulduggery. Take, for instance, differing policies regarding blood donorship. In the US, it’s a commercial operation, but in the UK blood is given freely as a donation, a service to the community. Sandel argues that in America this has changed the norms; the operating rules by which society functions. What was a gift has become a commodity. This might explain why the American bloodbank experiences shortages, inefficiencies and a greater incidence of contamination. It’s a reminder, he says, that markets leave their mark.

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