Michael J. Sandel

The popularity of the show is attributed to the discussion-oriented format (the Socratic method)—rather than recitation and memorization of facts—and to Sandel's engaging style, incorporating context into discussion; for example, he starts one lecture with a discussion of the ethics of ticket scalping.

Sandel is the author of several publications, including Democracy's Discontent and Public Philosophy. Public Philosophy is a collection of his own previously published essays examining the role of morality and justice in American political life. He offers a commentary on the roles of moral values and civic community in the American electoral process—a much-debated aspect of the 2004 US election cycle and of current political discussion.

Sandel is currently teaching his Justice course on edX. On April 29, 2013, the philosophy department faculty of San Jose State University addressed an open letter to Sandel protesting the use of MOOCs (massively open online courses) such as his Justice course. Sandel publicly responded: "The worry that the widespread use of online courses will damage departments in public universities facing budgetary pressures is a legitimate concern that deserves serious debate, at edX and throughout higher education. The last thing I want is for my online lectures to be used to undermine faculty colleagues at other institutions."

In April 2012, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a three-part series and later podcast presented by Sandel titled The Public Philosopher. These followed a format similar to the Justice lectures, this time recorded in front of an audience at the London School of Economics. Across three programs, Sandel debates with the audience whether universities should give preference to students from poorer backgrounds, whether a nurse should be paid more than a banker, and whether it is right to bribe people to be healthy.

He is also the author of the book What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2012), which argues some desirable things—such as body organs and the right to kill endangered species—should not be traded for cash.

The BBC broadcast eight 30-minute segments from the series on BBC Four starting on 25 January 2011.

Sandel gave the 2009 Reith Lectures on "A New Citizenship" on BBC Radio, addressing the "prospect for a new politics of the common good". The lectures were delivered in London on May 18, Oxford on May 21, Newcastle on May 26, and Washington, DC, in early June, 2009.

In 2009, Sandel criticized Sveriges Riksbank-Prize-winning economist Gary Becker's market immigration proposal. This proposed solution entailed imposing refugee quotas on nations according to their wealth and then allowing countries to pay other, poorer countries to take refugees allotted under their quota. Sandel concludes that "a market in refugees changes our view of who refugees are and how they should be treated. It encourages the participants—the buyers, the sellers and also those whose asylum is being haggled over—to think of refugees as burdens to be unloaded or as revenue sources rather than as human beings in peril."

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.

Sandel joined the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in 1981. He has taught the Justice course at Harvard University for two decades. More than 15,000 students have taken the course, making it one of the most highly attended in Harvard's history. The fall 2007 class was the largest ever at Harvard, with a total of 1,115 students. The fall 2005 course was recorded, and is offered online for students through the Harvard Extension School.

Michael J. Sandel (/s æ n ˈ d ɛ l / ; born 1953) is an American political philosopher. He is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the "most influential foreign figure of the year" (China Newsweek). He is also known for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982).

Sandel was born in Minneapolis on March 5, 1953, to a Jewish family, which moved to Los Angeles when he was thirteen. He was president of his senior class at Palisades High School (1971) and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University with a bachelor's degree in politics (1975). He received his doctorate from Balliol College, Oxford (1981), as a Rhodes Scholar, where he studied under philosopher Charles Taylor.