Professor Michael Sandel is a leading thinker in political philosophy and justice, and his work has helped define the field.
But as the climate crisis intensifies and kills millions who had little role in causing or exacerbating it, and at a time where a small percentage of persons have become obscenely wealthy, many are asking if there has been a fundamental failure of justice that we should all address.
Fact: The failure of world leaders for decades to ensure a measurable fair start in life, both ecologically and socially, for all children has done more to harm the practice of justice than Sandel and other luminaries have done to further it.
We have all benefitted at deadly cost to future generations, a fact quickly manifesting now as as the climate crisis intensifies.
None can be allowed to ignore creation ethics / positionality. Where, when and with which resources we are born is the largest determinant of outcomes in things like the climate crisis. And in terms of justice, and political obligation, there is no more basic a choice than how to deal with and offset our creation positionality, and the benefits and costs it conveys, intergenerationally for example.
Our collective failure to deal with the unjust and unsustainable system of growth that created our own birth, developmental, and emancipatory positionalities is leading to the death of millions. Academics are not immune from this systems of benefits and costs. In fact leaders in the academy are some of the most responsible, and we should all admit our benefitting at deadly cost to others based on never ensuring children the fair start in life justice required.
Doing so now, and changing policies to internalize the costs we foist on others, can save lives.
Ask anyone claiming to good work in the world to account for children being born without what the Children’s Rights Convention promises those kids in resources and rights. Then ask the person claiming to do good to reassess their claims. You will see a lot of good that many claimed to do actually fall away, by metrics we all believe in, with harm escalating as temperatures rise.
Sandel’s work and claims contain the same self-serving baseline error as the work of Cass Sunstein. But as the crises worsens, there are fewer reasons to continue to make that mistake.
TAKE ACTION: Contact Sandel and urge him to admit the harm done, and back reforms in human rights law that would ensure all children a fair start in life as the first and overrriding human right.
