Michael Sandel’s piece, “Who Deserves What” found in your FI Reader or as a .pdf attached here (for some reason, it comes up sideways, so you’ll have to rotate it one gyration counterclockwise) really coalesces a variety of topics we’ve discussed in these Class Conversations: he does a good job illuminating some thinking behind decisions like Goin in his “Visual Literacy” and Wildman and Davis in their “Making Systems of Privilege Visible.” He takes on who gets to do and say what – like Wade did in “You Did Not Build This City” and Wildman and Davis’ piece.
His article is based on the foundation of teleos – the essential nature of a thing – and works through several instances of Aristotilian telelogical reasoning as to the justice of certain practices (i.e. admission into universities, winnie the pooh analyzing honey and bees, and playing golf). Using any one of Sandel’s examples as entry into discussion about your research topic, analyze your argumentative position of your next essay relative to the fairness of the practice you are advocating.
Is what you’re advocating fair?
And fair to whom?