In “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” Charles Taylor proposed an analysis of the debates over these two political theories to sort out confusion between what he termed ontological issues, or “the terms you accept as ultimate in the order of explanation” … Read More

Charles Taylor, in an essay “Irreducibly Social Goods,” argued for the existence of social goods that cannot be reduced to individual utility or welfare. His argument is that certain goods—e.g., frank and open relationships, self-giving heroism, friendship—cannot exist except in … Read More

Ch. 5 of Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy discussed the markets pushed into public spaces. With the increasing social stratification of skyboxes and purchasable privileges in sports arenas, Sandel regrets the loss of a flatter, more egalitarian sense in … Read More

In ch. 4 of What Money Can’t Buy, Michael Sandel discussed markets in life and death: janitors insurance, viaticals, “ghoul pools,” terrorism futures markets, death bonds, all markets that trade value in others’ deaths. I was startled by the breadth … Read More

In ch. 3 of What Money Can’t Buy, Michael Sandel’s topic was how markets crowd out morals.  Discussing gifts, Sandel cited Joel Waldfogel’s argument that gifts are economically inefficient, rarely satisfying as much as what recipients buy for themselves, thus … Read More

In ch. 3 of What Money Can’t Buy, Michael Sandel argued that markets can crowd out morals. He discussed economist Kenneth Arrow’s 1972 argument (1) that a commercial blood market may not crowd out altruism and solidarity in blood donation. … Read More

In ch. 2 of What Money Can’t Buy, Michael Sandel discussed the use of market incentives to change unhealthy behavior such as smoking. Discussing the conclusions from various experimental studies, he noted that “cash incentives seem to work better at … Read More

Michael Sandel, in What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, writes in concern that we are moving from “having a market economy to being a market society” (p. 10, original emphasis,) with the latter putting things up for … Read More