Ep. 254: Michael Sandel Interview: Against Meritocracy (Part One)

10/12/20 • 65 min

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The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

On The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? (2020).

Do people get the wealth and status they deserve? And if they did, would that be good? Michael critiques the meritocracy: It's not actually fair, leaves most people feeling humiliated, and makes those on the top arrogant and disconnected. The commitment to meritocracy is shared by both political parties and helps explain our current dysfunction.

Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.

On The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? (2020).

Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.

Previous Episode

PREMIUM-Ep. 253: Leibniz on the Problem of Evil (Part Two)

If you'd like to hear more of the discussion on Gottfried Leibniz’s Theodicy that we started in part one, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.

This is just a few tantalizing snippets from part two, wherein we talk about the metaphysical status of evil and about the multi-layered character of will.

Next Episode

PREMIUM-Ep. 254: Michael Sandel Against Meritocracy (Part Two)

Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth continue the discussion on The Tyranny of Merit to talk further about how social values can and do change, and whether these changes can be engineered in the way that Sandel seems to want.

We interviewed Michael Sandel in part one. To hear this second part, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. This preview includes a couple of exchanges from near the beginning to give you a flavor of what to expect.