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The defect, Sandel maintains, lies in the impoverished vision of citizenship and community shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. American politics has lost its civic voice, leaving both liberals and conservatives unable to inspire the sense of community and civic engagement that self-government requires.
In search of a public philosophy adequate to our time, Sandel ranges across the American political experience, recalling the arguments of Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Douglas, Holmes and Brandeis, FDR and Reagan. He relates epic debates over slavery and industrial capitalism to contemporary controversies over the welfare state, religion, abortion, gay rights, and hate speech. Democracy's Discontent provides a new interpretation of the American political and constitutional tradition that offers hope of rejuvenating our civic life.
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In times of trouble men and women ransack their past and their traditions. In Democracy's Discontent...Michael Sandel...has raided that great American attic and returned with a bold narrative of the ancestors and the civic tradition they bequeathed...Sandel gives us one of the most powerful works of public philosophy to appear in recent years...[and] weaves a seamless web between the American present and the American past...[A] brilliant diagnosis.
--Fouad Ajami (U.S. News & World Report )
Distinctive merits of Sandel's Democracy's Discontent include its admirable combination of conceptual analysis and historical investigation, and the impression throughout of a genuinely thoughtful mind and generous spirit.
--Hilliard Aronovitch (Canadian Journal of Philosophy )
American political discourse has become thin gruel because of a deliberate deflation of American ideals. So says Michael Sandel in a wonderful new book, Democracy's Discontent...Sandel's book will help produce what he desires--a quickened sense of the moral consequences of political practices and economic arrangements...Sandel is right to regret the missing moral dimension of public discourse. Or he was until recently. Suddenly politics has reacquired a decidedly Sandelean dimension. Political debate is reconnecting with the concerns Sandel so lucidly examines...Statecraft is again soulcraft, and the citizens who will participate best, and with most zest, will be the fortunate readers of Sandel's splendid expansion of our rich political tradition.
--George F. Will (Newsweek )
It is the great achievement of Democracy's Discontent to weave around...lofty abstractions a detailed, coherent and marvelously illuminating narrative of American political and legal history. Recounting the debates over ratifying the Constitution, chartering a national bank, abolishing slavery, the spread of wage labor, Progressive Era reforms and the New Deal, Sandel skillfully highlights the presence (and, increasingly, absence) of republican ideology, the shift from a 'political economy of citizenship' to a political economy of growth.
--George Scialabba (Boston Globe )
A provocative new book...Democracy's Discontent argues that modern democracies will not be able to sustain themselves unless they can find ways of contending with the global economy, while also giving expression to their people's distinctive identities.
--Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times )
On 'public philosophy' of the most philosophical kind I recommend Michael J. Sandel's Democracy's Discontent...Sandel is delightfully non- or bipartisan in his probes, chastisings and recommendations. Among those asking for a civil civic voice and a re-engagement with the grand themes of citizenship and the common life, he is a leader.
--Martin E. Marty (Christian Century )
This thoughtful book offers a mirror which reflects the complex organization of our political souls...Sandel assiduously draws upon the republican vision to recover forgotten dimensions of American history. He shows the importance of that tradition to the founding of America and, at least until very recently, to constitutional law. He focuses on the history of judicial involvement in those institutions such as religion, family, and public speech that set the stage for democratic citizenship; and he records how in these areas the Supreme Court has shifted from a concern to protect the cultural conditions of citizenship toward a voluntarist doctrine of the rights of the unencumbered individual...These pages, full of reflective argument and vivid examples, will repay attention by anyone seeking to come to terms with the contemporary state of American politics.
--William Connolly (Raritan )
[Through] detailed historical analysis and eloquent prose, Sandel tells the story of the republican tradition in the United States that demonstrates the central importance character formation and civic virtue once had in American government.
--James F. Louckes III (Canadian Review of American Studies )
Michael Sandel...has written an important book about the meaning of liberty. Sandel argues that over the last century, Americans have abandoned an earlier communitarian view of liberty, rooted in participation in self-government, for a narrower, individualistic definition, based on the power of personal choice. That has led to the great paradox of American politics: Just as Americans have become freer in the conduct of their personal lives, they have become more constrained in their public lives. The strength of Sandel's book is his account of how this definition of liberty has changed over the last 200 years. He argues persuasively that the new definition reinforces undesirable trends in court decisions and public policy...Sandel argues brilliantly that the change in this definition of liberty took place after the Civil War and was based primarily on economic change...His analysis is superb...By revealing the shallowness of liberal and conservative views of democracy, [this book] inspires us to reevaluate what American politics is really about.
--John B. Judis (Washington Post Book World )
Democracy's Discontent...is a good guide to the awkward questions we need to ask as we lurch into the next century, as unsure as ever about how to make the democracy of the twenty-first century a shade less disconnected--or at least less pointlessly disconnected--than today's...Indeed, this may well be one of those particularly valuable books that do more good to their skeptical readers than to their fans. The...former will have to think quite hard.
--Alan Ryan (Dissent )
Democracy's Discontent valuably traces the historical origins and development of what Sandel names the 'procedural republic', the political model within which the unencumbered self reigns supreme...The strengths of [the book] lie in Sandel's lucid exposition and analysis; more importantly, he is concerned with illuminating basic issues in political thought by actual historical examples and situations. In making full use of Supreme Court decisions, Sandel is acknowledging that much of the most vital American political thought is to be found in constitutional debates rather than academic treatises.
--Richard H. King (Political Studies )
I found an absorbing read in Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent...The United States produces much of the best thinking about how politics is to relate, in an era of alienation, to the civil society it purports to represent...The debate is as relevant on this as on the other side of the Atlantic.
--Michael Fry (Glasgow Herald )
A bold and compelling critique of American liberalism that challenges us to reassess some basic assumptions about our public life and its dilemmas. It is a remarkable fusion of philosophical and historical scholarship, and it confirms Sandel's reputation as one of America's most important political theorists.
--Alan Brinkley, Columbia University
An impressive work. It consolidates Sandel's position as the leading American republican-communitarian critic of rights-based liberalism...A major figure in the world of political theory has written a major book.
--George Kateb, Princeton University
Beautifully and mildly argued...Mr. Sandel conveys ideas with patient lucidity...The book's strength is historical...Mr. Sandel's philosophical take on history, however, does more than nudge us out of our contemporaneity. He shows, through close readings of Supreme Court decisions, how philosophical conceptions of the person changed--from a premise that an American will inherit a belief in God, for example, to one in which Americans are viewed as people whose religious faith is chosen like desserts at a restaurant...American history is, in Mr. Sandel's telling, a story of the tragic loss of civic republicanism--the notion that liberty is not about freedom from government, but about the capacity for self-government, which alone makes the practice of freedom possible.
--Andrew Sullivan (New York Times Book Review )
Among liberalism's critics, few have been more influential or insightful than Michael Sandel, a proponent of what has come to be called the `communitarian' alternative...In Democracy's Discontent, Sandel...offer[s] a full historical account of the evolution of liberalism in the United States...This carefully argued, consistently thought-provoking book is grounded in a sophisticated understanding of past and present political debates. Democracy's Discontent is well worth reading as we near yet another presidential election in which soundbites and poll-generated slogans substitute for reasoned debate about the nation's future.
--Eric Foner (The Nation )
Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent is an inspired and deeply disturbing polemic about citizenship...The last two-thirds of [the book]...explore with great historical acumen just how [liberalism and republicanism] have become manifest in the real world of labour, class and capitalist development. Sandel earns his theory by this history.
--Richard Sennett (Times Literary Supplement )
A rich and beautifully written account of American jurisprudence and political history, one which...is always informative and thought-provoking.
--Michael Rosen (Times Literary Supplement )
Sandel's latest contribution...is notable for its seriousness, its intelligence and its illuminating excursions into constitutional law...His brand of soulcraft is not about soul-engineering, but about protecting social environments that are conducive to the development of the habits and the virtues upon which all liberal welfare states finally depend.
--Mary Ann Glendon (New Republic )
A profound contribution to our understanding of the present discontents.
--Paul A. Rahe (Wall Street Journal )
A wide-ranging critique of American liberalism that, unlike many other current books on the matter, seeks its restoration as a guiding political ethic...A book rich in ideas. (Kirkus Reviews )
--Fouad Ajami (U.S. News & World Report )
Distinctive merits of Sandel's Democracy's Discontent include its admirable combination of conceptual analysis and historical investigation, and the impression throughout of a genuinely thoughtful mind and generous spirit.
--Hilliard Aronovitch (Canadian Journal of Philosophy )
American political discourse has become thin gruel because of a deliberate deflation of American ideals. So says Michael Sandel in a wonderful new book, Democracy's Discontent...Sandel's book will help produce what he desires--a quickened sense of the moral consequences of political practices and economic arrangements...Sandel is right to regret the missing moral dimension of public discourse. Or he was until recently. Suddenly politics has reacquired a decidedly Sandelean dimension. Political debate is reconnecting with the concerns Sandel so lucidly examines...Statecraft is again soulcraft, and the citizens who will participate best, and with most zest, will be the fortunate readers of Sandel's splendid expansion of our rich political tradition.
--George F. Will (Newsweek )
It is the great achievement of Democracy's Discontent to weave around...lofty abstractions a detailed, coherent and marvelously illuminating narrative of American political and legal history. Recounting the debates over ratifying the Constitution, chartering a national bank, abolishing slavery, the spread of wage labor, Progressive Era reforms and the New Deal, Sandel skillfully highlights the presence (and, increasingly, absence) of republican ideology, the shift from a 'political economy of citizenship' to a political economy of growth.
--George Scialabba (Boston Globe )
A provocative new book...Democracy's Discontent argues that modern democracies will not be able to sustain themselves unless they can find ways of contending with the global economy, while also giving expression to their people's distinctive identities.
--Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times )
On 'public philosophy' of the most philosophical kind I recommend Michael J. Sandel's Democracy's Discontent...Sandel is delightfully non- or bipartisan in his probes, chastisings and recommendations. Among those asking for a civil civic voice and a re-engagement with the grand themes of citizenship and the common life, he is a leader.
--Martin E. Marty (Christian Century )
This thoughtful book offers a mirror which reflects the complex organization of our political souls...Sandel assiduously draws upon the republican vision to recover forgotten dimensions of American history. He shows the importance of that tradition to the founding of America and, at least until very recently, to constitutional law. He focuses on the history of judicial involvement in those institutions such as religion, family, and public speech that set the stage for democratic citizenship; and he records how in these areas the Supreme Court has shifted from a concern to protect the cultural conditions of citizenship toward a voluntarist doctrine of the rights of the unencumbered individual...These pages, full of reflective argument and vivid examples, will repay attention by anyone seeking to come to terms with the contemporary state of American politics.
--William Connolly (Raritan )
[Through] detailed historical analysis and eloquent prose, Sandel tells the story of the republican tradition in the United States that demonstrates the central importance character formation and civic virtue once had in American government.
--James F. Louckes III (Canadian Review of American Studies )
Michael Sandel...has written an important book about the meaning of liberty. Sandel argues that over the last century, Americans have abandoned an earlier communitarian view of liberty, rooted in participation in self-government, for a narrower, individualistic definition, based on the power of personal choice. That has led to the great paradox of American politics: Just as Americans have become freer in the conduct of their personal lives, they have become more constrained in their public lives. The strength of Sandel's book is his account of how this definition of liberty has changed over the last 200 years. He argues persuasively that the new definition reinforces undesirable trends in court decisions and public policy...Sandel argues brilliantly that the change in this definition of liberty took place after the Civil War and was based primarily on economic change...His analysis is superb...By revealing the shallowness of liberal and conservative views of democracy, [this book] inspires us to reevaluate what American politics is really about.
--John B. Judis (Washington Post Book World )
Democracy's Discontent...is a good guide to the awkward questions we need to ask as we lurch into the next century, as unsure as ever about how to make the democracy of the twenty-first century a shade less disconnected--or at least less pointlessly disconnected--than today's...Indeed, this may well be one of those particularly valuable books that do more good to their skeptical readers than to their fans. The...former will have to think quite hard.
--Alan Ryan (Dissent )
Democracy's Discontent valuably traces the historical origins and development of what Sandel names the 'procedural republic', the political model within which the unencumbered self reigns supreme...The strengths of [the book] lie in Sandel's lucid exposition and analysis; more importantly, he is concerned with illuminating basic issues in political thought by actual historical examples and situations. In making full use of Supreme Court decisions, Sandel is acknowledging that much of the most vital American political thought is to be found in constitutional debates rather than academic treatises.
--Richard H. King (Political Studies )
I found an absorbing read in Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent...The United States produces much of the best thinking about how politics is to relate, in an era of alienation, to the civil society it purports to represent...The debate is as relevant on this as on the other side of the Atlantic.
--Michael Fry (Glasgow Herald )
A bold and compelling critique of American liberalism that challenges us to reassess some basic assumptions about our public life and its dilemmas. It is a remarkable fusion of philosophical and historical scholarship, and it confirms Sandel's reputation as one of America's most important political theorists.
--Alan Brinkley, Columbia University
An impressive work. It consolidates Sandel's position as the leading American republican-communitarian critic of rights-based liberalism...A major figure in the world of political theory has written a major book.
--George Kateb, Princeton University
Beautifully and mildly argued...Mr. Sandel conveys ideas with patient lucidity...The book's strength is historical...Mr. Sandel's philosophical take on history, however, does more than nudge us out of our contemporaneity. He shows, through close readings of Supreme Court decisions, how philosophical conceptions of the person changed--from a premise that an American will inherit a belief in God, for example, to one in which Americans are viewed as people whose religious faith is chosen like desserts at a restaurant...American history is, in Mr. Sandel's telling, a story of the tragic loss of civic republicanism--the notion that liberty is not about freedom from government, but about the capacity for self-government, which alone makes the practice of freedom possible.
--Andrew Sullivan (New York Times Book Review )
Among liberalism's critics, few have been more influential or insightful than Michael Sandel, a proponent of what has come to be called the `communitarian' alternative...In Democracy's Discontent, Sandel...offer[s] a full historical account of the evolution of liberalism in the United States...This carefully argued, consistently thought-provoking book is grounded in a sophisticated understanding of past and present political debates. Democracy's Discontent is well worth reading as we near yet another presidential election in which soundbites and poll-generated slogans substitute for reasoned debate about the nation's future.
--Eric Foner (The Nation )
Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent is an inspired and deeply disturbing polemic about citizenship...The last two-thirds of [the book]...explore with great historical acumen just how [liberalism and republicanism] have become manifest in the real world of labour, class and capitalist development. Sandel earns his theory by this history.
--Richard Sennett (Times Literary Supplement )
A rich and beautifully written account of American jurisprudence and political history, one which...is always informative and thought-provoking.
--Michael Rosen (Times Literary Supplement )
Sandel's latest contribution...is notable for its seriousness, its intelligence and its illuminating excursions into constitutional law...His brand of soulcraft is not about soul-engineering, but about protecting social environments that are conducive to the development of the habits and the virtues upon which all liberal welfare states finally depend.
--Mary Ann Glendon (New Republic )
A profound contribution to our understanding of the present discontents.
--Paul A. Rahe (Wall Street Journal )
A wide-ranging critique of American liberalism that, unlike many other current books on the matter, seeks its restoration as a guiding political ethic...A book rich in ideas. (Kirkus Reviews )
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7 人中、6人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
Alternative history of America's public philosophy
2008/1/10
形式:ハードカバー
In "Democracy's Discotent," the brilliant political philosopher Michael Sandel provides an overview of American legal history, jurisprudence, visions of citizenship, and economic policymaking through the lens of civic republicanism.
In fact, Sandel argues, civic republicanism represents much more than a mere strand among many woven into the philosophical fabric of America's founding and perpetuation: civic republican traditions (like cultivating the virtue of citizens, seeking economic justice, and making substantive judgments on controversial moral and political issues) are at the *heart* of our republic, and were prominently so until only very recently.
Sandel traces the emergence of liberalism as the dominant American public philosophy to a cluster of recent Supreme Court decisions and market-based economic policies. In explaining how liberalism has come to define and dominate the terms of the debate in articulating an American public philosophy, Sandel is cogent and persuasive. His brand of civic republicanism is as insightful as his criticisms of Rawlsian liberalism in "Liberalism and the Limits of Justice" but with greater so-called "real world" applicability.
Sandel is a public intellectual of the first order and this is a fine book of American legal, economic, and philosophical history. Highly recommended for students of political science.
Other terrific books about the American founding and civic republicanism: "The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787" by Gordon Wood and "The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition" by J.G.A. Pocock.
In fact, Sandel argues, civic republicanism represents much more than a mere strand among many woven into the philosophical fabric of America's founding and perpetuation: civic republican traditions (like cultivating the virtue of citizens, seeking economic justice, and making substantive judgments on controversial moral and political issues) are at the *heart* of our republic, and were prominently so until only very recently.
Sandel traces the emergence of liberalism as the dominant American public philosophy to a cluster of recent Supreme Court decisions and market-based economic policies. In explaining how liberalism has come to define and dominate the terms of the debate in articulating an American public philosophy, Sandel is cogent and persuasive. His brand of civic republicanism is as insightful as his criticisms of Rawlsian liberalism in "Liberalism and the Limits of Justice" but with greater so-called "real world" applicability.
Sandel is a public intellectual of the first order and this is a fine book of American legal, economic, and philosophical history. Highly recommended for students of political science.
Other terrific books about the American founding and civic republicanism: "The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787" by Gordon Wood and "The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition" by J.G.A. Pocock.
29 人中、21人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
Interesting
1998/8/2
形式:ハードカバー
I found this book to be an interesting exploration of the evolution of American political values. Sandel argues that, over time, American political values have moved away from the political philosophy embedded in the Constitution. To illustrate his thesis, Sandel uses legal instances sucha as laws and legal judgements. This book was written by a lawyer, not a political scientist, so the methodology is different than in many books of a similar nature. It's prose is well written and accessable, without being over simplified. Overall, I found it to be interesting and informative.
14 人中、10人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
A Defective Critique of Liberalism, but Sandel Makes Important Points
2009/9/27
形式:ペーパーバック|Amazonが確認した購入
First, if you are new to moral philosophy, you should first read Sandel's, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009). This book is a real pleasure to read and covers the basic issues, although it's more about personal behavior rather than political philosophy.
Second, there is a very enlightening exchange between dyed-in-the-wool Rawlsian liberal Thomas Nagel and Michael Sandel in the New York Review of Books. Nagel bitterly critiques Democracy's Discontent in "Progressive But Not Liberal (NYRB May 25, 2006), and Sandel replies in The Case For Liberalism: An Exchange (NYRB October 5, 2006). I found Democracy's Discontent well worth reading, but somewhat long-winded, with several tedious exegeses on legal issues, and the main points attacked tangentially with Sandel's argument spread out over many chapters and with little attempt to deal with obvious objections to his thesis. The exchange with Nagel illuminates both his theory and its relation to contemporary liberalism.
The meat of this book was written and delivered at Northwestern University School of Law in 1989, and the book was published in 1996. Because Sandel presents his argument as a reaction to the tenor of political debate some two decades ago, some of his arguments do not sound exactly right today. "The loss of self-government," he asserts (p. 3), " and the erosion of community together define the anxiety of the age." I do not perceive these as problems in American life at all. Yes, people are much less satisfied with their government than they were in the peaceful 1950's, but that was a very special period of lull in political conflict. As for loss of community, that appears to me to be just wrong. Americans value their communities and participate in their communities, even though the nature of community has changed with a high level of female labor force participation and the Internet as a new medium of community action.
Despite this rough start, Sandel's book does clearly outline a debate within liberalism between two visions of the polity. One view is that of John Stuart Mill and John Rawls (if you haven't read Mill's On Liberty recently, do so---it is a masterpiece; if you haven't read Rawls' A Theory of Justice, consider yourself lucky---read a wiki summary and save yourself the agony of Rawls complex and prolix prose), for whom the Good Society gives individuals to live their lives as they see fit, the limits of liberty being the other guy's equal rights. In this view, there is no need for a public argument concerning the nature of the Good or the Right---each individual is given the power to decide for himself. Moreover, this liberal philosophy preaches not only to be tolerant of those who are different from oneself, but to respect the individuality of others and accord them the esteem they deserve as human beings and members of the community.
This liberal philosophy of dignity and tolerance shines brightly when confronting religious bigotry and political intolerance, and indeed helps one understand how someone seemingly different from oneself might have deep and abiding virtues that one can even learn from, and that such learning is not an affront to one's own moral principles. Sandel certainly appreciates this aspect of what he calls "procedural liberalism," but he argues that a philosophy of radical "live and let live" fragments the political community and undermines the idea that liberty depends on sharing in self-government.
According to Sandel, we need a formative politics in which political discourse develops the capacities of citizens for self-rule. The radical laissez-faire of procedural liberalism makes it impossible to use political discourse to probe fundamental morality. For instance, one of the rallying cries of choice advocates in the abortion controversy is "If you are opposed to abortion, then don't have one!" The message here is that abortion is a personal choice, and I'll make mine the way I wish, and you should do the same. But please don't tell me that I must follow your views on the matter rather than my own.
Contrary to this procedurally liberal approach to abortion, Sandel asserts, the republican tradition in liberalism requires that we debate the morality of abortion and come to some understanding through public discourse. Similarly, rather than supporting the institution of gay marriage or that of mothers with young children remaining in the labor force on the grounds "to each his own---de gustibus no est disputandem," Sandel insists that we must debate the implications of these institutions on how they will affect the fabric of our communities and the development of individual character in the future as a result of living with these institutions.
Sandel stresses that conservatives, who flatly reject the principles of Mill and Rawls, have no trouble addressing the substantive issues. "The Christian Coalition and similar groups," Sandel notes in one of his writings, "seek to clothe the naked public square with narrow, intolerant moralisms. Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread." In his republican liberalism, Sandel would not hesitate to debate the issues, not just the procedures. It is simply not true, Sandel asserts, that "rights" trump "the good," as Mill and Rawls suggest.
The problem with Sandel's position, in my mind, is that it is a caricature of the traditional liberal position. Mill defended free speech, for instance, not on the grounds of "live and let live," but rather on the grounds that this is the best way to foster innovation and creativity, as well as improving the capacity of citizens to entertain and evaluate contrasting arguments. How else could we in good conscious prohibit some kinds of speech and writing (hate speech, how to build bombs from grocery store items)? Similarly, the argument that abortion is simply a woman's absolute, inviolable right is argued by some, but not by most supporters of choice, and when it is argued, the reasons are not procedural but substantive (e.g., the slippery slope argument against prohibiting late-term abortions).
In recent years in the United States, there have been extensive debates about the progressivity of taxation, the treatment of illegal immigrants, giving psychotropic drugs to unruly children, school choice, anti-discrimination laws, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, what to do about nuclear proliferation, and a host of other issues. It should be clear that there is absolutely no way to deal such issues using a "live and let live" philosophy of tolerance. In this sense, Sandel's whole argument appears to be to be severely overstated.
This is not to deny Sandel's point that we must collectively decide on a general conception of the good life that we actively affirm and that we are willing to defend intellectually and impose by force. Live and let live does not apply to soccer hooligans, public drunks, wife beaters, hop heads, and child abusers. You can believe in "man-boy love," for instance, but if you practice it we will lock you up. My point is simply that we knew that all along, and the people who defend these proscribed practices by invoking the rules of tolerance and respect for civil liberties are just using bad arguments.
In his critique of Sandel's position, Thomas Nagel argues, "Liberalism may be a minority conviction in the world at large. To most people values are values, and political power should be used to implement them: What else is it for? But Sandel's ideal republic of comprehensive virtue would abandon a form of civic respect that has been of inestimable value, and threaten one of the indispensable grounds of political stability in our free, stormy, magnificently diverse nation. To use a phrase of Jürgen Habermas, constitutional patriotism should be enough to satisfy what Sandel calls our "hunger for a public life of larger meaning." A hunger that demands more from the state will lead us where history has shown we should not want to go." Amen.
Second, there is a very enlightening exchange between dyed-in-the-wool Rawlsian liberal Thomas Nagel and Michael Sandel in the New York Review of Books. Nagel bitterly critiques Democracy's Discontent in "Progressive But Not Liberal (NYRB May 25, 2006), and Sandel replies in The Case For Liberalism: An Exchange (NYRB October 5, 2006). I found Democracy's Discontent well worth reading, but somewhat long-winded, with several tedious exegeses on legal issues, and the main points attacked tangentially with Sandel's argument spread out over many chapters and with little attempt to deal with obvious objections to his thesis. The exchange with Nagel illuminates both his theory and its relation to contemporary liberalism.
The meat of this book was written and delivered at Northwestern University School of Law in 1989, and the book was published in 1996. Because Sandel presents his argument as a reaction to the tenor of political debate some two decades ago, some of his arguments do not sound exactly right today. "The loss of self-government," he asserts (p. 3), " and the erosion of community together define the anxiety of the age." I do not perceive these as problems in American life at all. Yes, people are much less satisfied with their government than they were in the peaceful 1950's, but that was a very special period of lull in political conflict. As for loss of community, that appears to me to be just wrong. Americans value their communities and participate in their communities, even though the nature of community has changed with a high level of female labor force participation and the Internet as a new medium of community action.
Despite this rough start, Sandel's book does clearly outline a debate within liberalism between two visions of the polity. One view is that of John Stuart Mill and John Rawls (if you haven't read Mill's On Liberty recently, do so---it is a masterpiece; if you haven't read Rawls' A Theory of Justice, consider yourself lucky---read a wiki summary and save yourself the agony of Rawls complex and prolix prose), for whom the Good Society gives individuals to live their lives as they see fit, the limits of liberty being the other guy's equal rights. In this view, there is no need for a public argument concerning the nature of the Good or the Right---each individual is given the power to decide for himself. Moreover, this liberal philosophy preaches not only to be tolerant of those who are different from oneself, but to respect the individuality of others and accord them the esteem they deserve as human beings and members of the community.
This liberal philosophy of dignity and tolerance shines brightly when confronting religious bigotry and political intolerance, and indeed helps one understand how someone seemingly different from oneself might have deep and abiding virtues that one can even learn from, and that such learning is not an affront to one's own moral principles. Sandel certainly appreciates this aspect of what he calls "procedural liberalism," but he argues that a philosophy of radical "live and let live" fragments the political community and undermines the idea that liberty depends on sharing in self-government.
According to Sandel, we need a formative politics in which political discourse develops the capacities of citizens for self-rule. The radical laissez-faire of procedural liberalism makes it impossible to use political discourse to probe fundamental morality. For instance, one of the rallying cries of choice advocates in the abortion controversy is "If you are opposed to abortion, then don't have one!" The message here is that abortion is a personal choice, and I'll make mine the way I wish, and you should do the same. But please don't tell me that I must follow your views on the matter rather than my own.
Contrary to this procedurally liberal approach to abortion, Sandel asserts, the republican tradition in liberalism requires that we debate the morality of abortion and come to some understanding through public discourse. Similarly, rather than supporting the institution of gay marriage or that of mothers with young children remaining in the labor force on the grounds "to each his own---de gustibus no est disputandem," Sandel insists that we must debate the implications of these institutions on how they will affect the fabric of our communities and the development of individual character in the future as a result of living with these institutions.
Sandel stresses that conservatives, who flatly reject the principles of Mill and Rawls, have no trouble addressing the substantive issues. "The Christian Coalition and similar groups," Sandel notes in one of his writings, "seek to clothe the naked public square with narrow, intolerant moralisms. Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread." In his republican liberalism, Sandel would not hesitate to debate the issues, not just the procedures. It is simply not true, Sandel asserts, that "rights" trump "the good," as Mill and Rawls suggest.
The problem with Sandel's position, in my mind, is that it is a caricature of the traditional liberal position. Mill defended free speech, for instance, not on the grounds of "live and let live," but rather on the grounds that this is the best way to foster innovation and creativity, as well as improving the capacity of citizens to entertain and evaluate contrasting arguments. How else could we in good conscious prohibit some kinds of speech and writing (hate speech, how to build bombs from grocery store items)? Similarly, the argument that abortion is simply a woman's absolute, inviolable right is argued by some, but not by most supporters of choice, and when it is argued, the reasons are not procedural but substantive (e.g., the slippery slope argument against prohibiting late-term abortions).
In recent years in the United States, there have been extensive debates about the progressivity of taxation, the treatment of illegal immigrants, giving psychotropic drugs to unruly children, school choice, anti-discrimination laws, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, what to do about nuclear proliferation, and a host of other issues. It should be clear that there is absolutely no way to deal such issues using a "live and let live" philosophy of tolerance. In this sense, Sandel's whole argument appears to be to be severely overstated.
This is not to deny Sandel's point that we must collectively decide on a general conception of the good life that we actively affirm and that we are willing to defend intellectually and impose by force. Live and let live does not apply to soccer hooligans, public drunks, wife beaters, hop heads, and child abusers. You can believe in "man-boy love," for instance, but if you practice it we will lock you up. My point is simply that we knew that all along, and the people who defend these proscribed practices by invoking the rules of tolerance and respect for civil liberties are just using bad arguments.
In his critique of Sandel's position, Thomas Nagel argues, "Liberalism may be a minority conviction in the world at large. To most people values are values, and political power should be used to implement them: What else is it for? But Sandel's ideal republic of comprehensive virtue would abandon a form of civic respect that has been of inestimable value, and threaten one of the indispensable grounds of political stability in our free, stormy, magnificently diverse nation. To use a phrase of Jürgen Habermas, constitutional patriotism should be enough to satisfy what Sandel calls our "hunger for a public life of larger meaning." A hunger that demands more from the state will lead us where history has shown we should not want to go." Amen.
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