Episode description

Michael Sandel is the Professor of Government at Harvard University and one of the most highly regarded and well-known philosophers in the world, his classes at Harvard are wildly popular and always fully packed. Last October he received the 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences because, according to the jury, he has “managed to transmit his dialogic, deliberative approach to debate to a global audience.” Sandel believes that faith in debate has been lost, which is one of the reasons why public discourse in democratic societies worldwide seems so empty. He explains: “We are afraid to talk with our co-citizens about big questions such as justice, what it means to be a citizen, and the common good because we are afraid we won’t agree,”.