Transcript
E.J. DIONNE: Mike Sandel is truly one of our moment's most important political and public philosophers. So I loved it when Mike finally put out this collection called "Public Philosophy," of which we in general and, I personally believe, liberals in particular are very much in search of.
I just want to read one brief passage from the beginning of Mike's book, which gives you a sense of how relevant his discussion is to our moment. He notes that the Democrats have been struggling for awhile over what some call the "moral values thing."
"When Democrats in recent times have reached for moral and religious resonance," he writes, "their efforts have taken two forms, neither wholly convincing. Some, following the example of George W. Bush, have sprinkled their speeches with religious rhetoric and biblical references. So intense was the competition for divine favor in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns that a Web site, beliefnet.com, established a God-o-meter to track the candidates' references to God.
"The second approach Democrats have taken is to argue that moral values in politics are not only about cultural issues such as abortion, school prayer, same-sex marriage, and the display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, but also about economic issues such as health care, childcare, education funding, and Social Security.
"Though the impulse is right," Sandel concludes, "the hortatory fix for the values deficit comes across as stilted and unconvincing, for two reasons: First, Democrats have had trouble articulating with clarity and conviction the vision of economic justice that underlies their social and economic policies; and second, even a strong argument for economic justice does not, by itself, constitute a governing vision."
And so Mike just set himself up, with that introduction, with a promise to provide us with that comprehensive public vision. I must say, my own definition of the value of politics was shaped by the last line of Mike's brilliant book, "Liberalism and the Limits of Justice." Mike wrote then, and I still believe, that when politics goes well, we can know a good in common that we cannot know alone.
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