By Chung Ah-young
Here is a hypothetical question: if you have to choose to kill one person to save five others and if doing nothing, the five would die in front of you, what would you do?
Michael J. Sandel, American political scientist and professor at Harvard University, asks such questions for moral reasoning in his book “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do,” which has recently been published in Korea.
His philosophical reasoning and moral search have become a sensation not only in the United States but also here in Korea. As soon as the book was released here, it sold more than 300,000 copies, marking a rare record in the political philosophy genre.
The book deals with ethical dilemmas in a down-to-earth manner through various examples and cases with open endings.
The topics are based on his lectures at Harvard for some 30 years and through dialogue with students during his courses.
The 57-year-old came to Korea to hold a lecture organized by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies for Korean students.
“I have been astonished and surprised at the reception of my book ‘Justice’ in Korea, and I am deeply grateful toward the Korean readers’ interest in my book. I hope the book can reach a general audience, as well as scholars and specialists in philosophy,”Sandel told reporters, Thursday.
Before the lecture, Friday, he explained his book and talked about various issues in Korea and other parts of the world. The author said that his course and book offer readers and students a journey in moral reasoning by making them think about ethical questions for themselves.
His aim in writing the book was to pose philosophical questions about justice and individual rights, and the meaning of common good, accessible and even exciting for general readers.
“My dream with the book is to contribute even in a small way to encouraging the public discussion of questions of justice and ethics. It sounds to me, in my country and also in Korea, there is a great hunger in the public for serious discussion about the big ethical questions and the questions of justice,” he said.
He hopes that his book could contribute to political discussions since politicians and political parties often fail to deal with the question that matters the most.
“What I hope to do is to contribute to a new kind of political discussion that includes direct, and sometimes hard and difficult, questions about justice and the common good,” he added.
These discussions, morever, often take place in the classroom. As means of nurturing global leadership, the American scholar proposed three elements. One of them has to do with a global outlook within university education to acquaint students with other societies, cultures and histories. “So the first has to do with the kind of university we provide. I would describe it as education for global citizenship.”
Second, travel to other societies and cultures, or learning languages, meeting with other peoples and living in another society are crucial for broadening global education.
The third element is to learn about one’s own traditions, including philosophical, cultural and ethical ones, to know enough about traditions and to engage in meaningful discussion about cross-cultural values.
“Very often today, there is a willingness to engage in cross-cultural dialogue in cross civilization but participants can’t really be effective contributors unless they have knowledge of their own history and tradition. I think developing and cultivating and education for global citizenship is the highest responsibility of our universities,” said Sandel.
Concerning multicultural societies, the writer cited the need to share the different values by embracing disagreements in terms of major ethical questions.
“The special challenges for agreeing on major ethical questions we have to begin by recognizing that, in a pluralistic society, people have different and sometimes competing moral and spiritual ideas.
“zThese special questions for justice and the idea of just societies seem to require that we agree on certain shared values. But how can we agree? This is really our question,” he said.
“My answer would be that we have to create a public or civic life that is open to competing moral and spiritual values and welcomes rather than resists the open and honest discussion of moral disagreement.”
Learning how to have a public or civic life that welcomes moral disagreement is the first step toward a just society, the professor said.
He urged people to find ways to reform public and civic life for a democratic society to cope with moral disagreements, not because we all agree, but because a healthy democracy requires vigorous debate about moral and spiritual questions.
“That, I think, is the biggest challenge to our societies today to create a public arena or a public forum for serious discussion of hard moral questions in the face of disagreement. Learning to live with and even learning from disagreement is the beginning of creating a just society.”
Sandel also introduced his way of teaching at Harvard and wished to share the online course with others. His goal is to open access to the Harvard classroom and to make the course of “Justice” available globally for those interested.
“My ultimate hope would be to create a global classroom through technology. We can develop technology using video so that students in Korea and in others countries can join in the live video link and global classroom experiments,” he added.
Sandel also gave a lecture at Kyung Hee University, Friday, and talked about his book and insights on the subject “Justice.” More than 4,000 readers, students and businessmen filled the hall to listen and also share their own opinions on the issue.
질문을 하나 가정해보자. 당신이 사람 5명을 살리기 위해서 한 명을 죽여야 하고 만약 아무 행동도 취하지 않으면 당신 앞에서 5명이 죽는다면 당신은 어떻게 하겠습니까?
미국 정치학자 마이클 샌델 (57) 하버드대학교 교수는 최근 한국에서 출판된 자신의 책 “정의란 무엇인가”에서 도덕적 추론을 위해서 이러한 질문들을 독자에게 던지고 있다.
그의 철학적 논리와 도덕적 추론에 미국인들뿐만 아니라 한국인들도 열광하고 있다. 한국에서는 책이 발매되자마자 정치철학 분야에서는 보기 드물게30만권 이상이 팔렸다.
책은 도덕적 딜레마들을 열린 결말을 가지고 있는 다양한 예시들을 통해서 현실적으로 다루고 있다.
책에 나와있는 주제들은 하버드 강의에서 그가 30년 동안 학생들과 나눈 대화에 기초를 두고 있다.
샌델 교수는 아산정책연구원 초청으로 한국 대학생 대상으로 강의하기 위해 한국에 왔다.
그는 19일 기자간담회에서 “내 책이 한국에서 이렇게 환대를 받는 것에 매우 놀랐다. 한국 독자들의 관심에 매우 감사한다. 이 책이 철학자들이나 전문가들뿐만 아니라 대중에게도 전해지길 바란다”고 말했다.
강의 전에 그는 자신의 책에 대해 설명했고 한국을 비롯한 여러 나라에서 대두되고 있는 이슈들에 대해서도 언급했다. 샌델 교수는 자신의 강의와 책이 독자들과 학생들에게 도덕적 질문을 던짐으로써 도덕적 추론을 실질적으로 체험하게 해준다고 했다고 설명했다.
책을 쓰는 그의 목적은 정의와 개인의 권리, 공동재에 대한 철학적 질문들을 일반 독자들이 흥미롭게 느낄 수 있도록 하는데 있다고 했다.
샌델 교수는 “이 책이 정의와 도덕에 대한 토론을 대중화 하는데 아주 조금이라도 기여하는 것이다”고 말하고 “미국과 한국 대중들이 정의와 도덕에 대한 심각한 토론을 벌이기를 염원하고 있다”고 덧붙였다.