Michael Sandel: Justice, what’s the right thing to do?

最近在网上看了Michael Sandel给本科生上的一个公共课, 课名就叫Justice, what’s the right thing to do? 可以在各个视频网站上搜索一下, 或者查http://justiceharvard.org/这门课本质上讲的是政治哲学的原理, 但不是专业课, 从一些著名的案例/事例/道德困境开始讨论, 学生的辩论中有很多火花; 而Sandel总能把握住课程的主线. 从功利主义, 自由主义, 到现代的正义论等等, 讨论了很多重要的概念. 如果你爱思考, 就一定会有收获. 我常常听到Sandel提问, 在学生开始讨论前, 我先暂停, 自己想想, 然后看看学生们的看法.

我最大的收获是: 解决了一些我过去一直困惑的问题(不好意思, 我不是学这个的), 同时带来更多的困惑. 指望上一门课就真正理解政治哲学是不现实的(我还是不理解), 但重要的是让自己更深入思考, 更广泛的质疑.  很多人觉得哲学是高深的学问, 其实要看你怎么看待它. 大学毕业之后, 我觉得我似乎更会跟人打交道, 但思考的勇气少了很多, 思维变得比较平庸. 我很羡慕那些学生在课堂上可以从任何角度争论一个问题, 不必担心政治上正确与否.

在课程一开始和结束的时候, Michael Sandel说: When we first came together some 13 weeks ago, I spoke of the exhilaration of political philosophy, and also its dangers. But how philosophy works, and it has always worked, by estranging us from the familiar, by unsettling our settled sumptions. I tried to warn you that once the familiar turns strange, once we begin to reflect our circumstance, it is never quite the same again. I hope you have by now experienced at least a little of this unease, because this is the tension that animates the critical reflection and political improvement and maybe even the moral life as well. And so our arguments come to an end in a sense but in another sense goes on. Why we ask the outset, why do these argument keep going, even if they raise questions that are impossible ever finely to resolve? The reason is that we live answer to these questions all the time. And in our public lives and in our personal lives philosophy is inescapable even if sometimes it seems impossible. We began with the thought of Kant that skepticism is the resting place for human reason, where can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings, but it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement. To allow ourselves to simply quiescence skepticism or to complacent, Kant wrote, can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason. The aim of this course has been to awaken the restlessness of reason and to see where I am lead. And if we have done at least that and if the restlessness continue to afflict you in the days and years to come then we together have achieved no small thing. (这一段是听的, 如果写错了, 请纠正)

顺便贴几个他一开始提的问题:

1. Do we have some fundamental rights?

2. Does a faire procedure justify any result?

3. What is moral work of consent?

康德说, 有两件事物越思考就越觉得震撼与敬畏，那便是我头上的星空和我心中的道德准则. 我想说, 那些伟大的哲学家总令我敬佩, 虽然我不理解他们的理论. 我们科学家总可以做实验来验证, 但哲学家不能做实验验证自己的理论, 只能靠讨论和思考.