Sarah called me yesterday and said, “There’s some philosopher on the Today Show, and Meredith is asking him about whether or not philosophy is relevant to people today. They’re also talking about all those trolley cases that you love to talk about.”
I couldn’t find the video yesterday. But I found it today. Here it is. It’s not bad.
Some Preliminary Observations
Meredith asked Sandel in this interview if philosophy was really relevant today. At first, I was kind of baffled that this is a serious question. The answer is so obviously, “Yes”. Here’s the simple reason: Any time you argue about what ought to be done in some domain (like government), you’ll be doing philosophy. To present arguments for and an against conclusions about what ought to be done just is one way of doing philosophy. Heck, to even try and effectively argue that philosophy is irrelevant, you would need to do some philosophy.
But then I thought, there are a lot of misconceptions (even amongst academics in other disciplines) about what philosophy is and what philosophers are up to. So, I guess it’s a fair question for Meredith to ask if anything to allow a philosopher to clear the air. Furthermore, it seems like she’s not asking it not as a serious challenge, but as a softball question to give Sandel so that he can clear the air. At least that’s the impression I got.
Second, in case you’re interested in reading more about Sandel he’s not listed on Harvard’s philosophy department website. It looks like he’s in their government department. You can also read more about Sandel here.
Indeed, I am surprised they’d be talking to Sandel about philosophy – I’d never regarded him as a philosopher. Also, he’s an enemy of the future.
I guess I’m not sure that reasoning about what one ought to do counts as “doing philosophy.,” though we can waive that point. But the more interesting question is whether what’s done under the disciplinary banner of Philosophy is relevant. And why some of it undoubtedly is, I’d say that a good deal — too much, in my view — isn’t. But I’m crusty on this subject.
Thom,
I did think it was odd that they listed him as a philosophy professor, but he’s not listed in Harvard’s philosophy department. But since I haven’t read much of his work, and I know that philosophers are sometimes housed in other departments – I didn’t want to claim he wasn’t a philosopher. I’m intrigued to know more about your last claim. Why is he an enemy of the future?
Allen,
Fair enough. There are a lot of things done under the banner of philosophy won’t be relevant to most persons day-to-day life. Some of them are debates/questions that I’m interested in like: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for an object’s being a simple? What do I have better reason to believe: three-dimensionalism or four-dimensionalism.
Although, some metaphysicians are pretty good about explaining how some of these seemingly irrelevant debates actually do have implications for questions that people (ordinary, everyday non-philosophers) do care about? Katherine Hawley comes to mind.
Also, good point on the reasoning bit. Merely reasoning about ought claims might not be doing philosophy. Example: If I presented the following argument:
1. The Magic 8-ball said I ought to eat a turkey sandwich.
2. If the Magic-8 ball said I ought to eat a turkey sandwich, then I ought to eat a turkey sandwich.
3. Therefore, I ought to eat a turkey sandwich.
You might say that the above argument involves reasoning about an ought, but if someone JUST gave that – it seems like they wouldn’t be doing philosophy (although some might just say it’s bad philosophy).
So, I suppose that some qualification needs to be placed on the kind of methodology employed in the reasoning.
My comment was intentionally a bit flippant. He really is arguably a philosopher. Sandel is best-known (amongst transhumanists, anyway) for his work on bioethics – see http://www.bioethics.gov/background/sandelpaper.html (“what’s wrong with enhancement?”) where he argues that the danger of losing a ‘sense of beholding’ is a good enough reason to withhold life-saving technologies from people of the future (an admittedly biased reading).
Oh, I’d also like to point out that ironically, he looks disturbingly like Dr. Arik Soong.
A possibly apocryphal story is that he was the model for Mr Burns’ physical appearance in the Simpsons. A lot of people involved in the Simpsons came from Harvard so it is not that crazy…
Sandel is actually best known for articulating a version of “communitarianism” in opposition to liberalism (his most influential work being Liberalism and the Limits of Justice). I would guess that most political philosophers would have no problem including him in their ranks, though whether he is taken to be a good philosopher would probably generate much more debate.
But more importantly–I have read a fair bit of Sandel, and watched a lot of Simpsons, but never thought to put the two together. Mark Eli Kalderon just blew my mind…
I think you’re right that it was mostly just a softball question. But sometimes I think the best way to make people realize philosophy is important and “relevant” and all that is to just treat it like it is. Attempting to clear the air often only makes it look like it’s a controversial claim to say philosophy is relevant and so on.
Also, I love how the mainstream media always have to mention the Ancients when talking about philosophy. I bet a some people would get fired if they did a segment on philosophy but didn’t mention either Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle!