Justice

Short Book Review: Justice by Michael J. Sandel

SBR: Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? is a book for our times. It isn’t a self-improvement text about what an individual should be doing, as people sometimes tend to infer from its subtitle. It is about what a just society should look like. In addressing that question, the author draws on ancient to current (western) philosophical thoughts, current and recent (mostly American) political discourses and many legal battles that bring some difficult questions about right and wrong to the fore. If you identify yourself as a liberal in political and social thoughts (like me),  it is easy to start believing that in espousing freedom, individual dignity and correction of systemic biases, you have covered all the issues of morality, justice, and social cohesion. But it isn’t so easy. And this book does a good job of making you realize that and to help you question more. If you find liberalism to be just gibberish and think that some good, old values you have learned from tradition are what makes a good society, then you definitely need some of these questions in your life. The limitation of the book for an Indian audience is that it focuses on Western philosophy and American society. But that affects relatability, not the relevance of the book. The book is also immensely readable.

To read or not to read: Yes.

Poison, Embryos and Polyphony @ BYOB Party at JustBooks, Sahakarnagar in July 2018 (Part 3)

If you found all the conversation about philosophy interesting but you are hesitant to read the great minds, maybe pop philosophy would be a good place to turn to. Abhaya suggested that we read Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel who engages the reader with contemporary issues including same-sex marriages, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, PTSD-related perception, etc.  His arguments help the reader understand more about the dynamics involved in decisionmaking when it comes to politics, ethics, morality and day to day living.

Image result for The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York Reprint EditionMugdha brought along an interesting book called The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York Reprint Edition by Deborah Blum. She’s also the author of another equally fascinating book called Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death which is the story of William James and his fascination for the occult. The Poisoner’s Handbook is a fascinating story of chemistry, poison and the bedrock of forensics. Back in the early 1900s and prior to that, murdering someone using poison could hardly be proved. The coroner’s office was chaotic and it was Charles Norris, a wealthy medical examiner, and a toxicologist called Alexander Gettler who created the field of forensic chemistry and changed the way crime was investigated by providing a proper framework to build investigation upon. “So many things can kill us,” Mugdha said, “So there needed to be some kind of yardstick. These were some questions that needed answering. How much arsenic led to poisoning? What alcohol level in the blood could be surmised as legal?” Many ideas sprang up about the way gas lamps killed people by causing carbon monoxide poisoning, how the Russians were experts when it came to all matters toxic, the death of Napolean by arsenic, the suspicious deaths of well-known celebrities and exogamy in the Indus Valley.

Image result for sing you home jodi amazonPrerna spoke about a book that carried forward the theme of ethical dilemmas that ran throughout the BYOB Party. Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult tells the story of three characters who have trouble conceiving. Zoe, the principle character, is a music therapist. She moves on to a same-sex relationship while her husband moves in with his picture-perfect brother and wife. A legal battle over the existing embryos leads to fundamental questions being raised. Who exactly constitutes a family? Is one kind of family superior to another?

Homosexuality, the concept of deviants, the rights of embryos, egg-freezing employee benefits and surrogacy were discussed. Also since the book is told in multiple voices, there was a long aside on the merits of this kind of storytelling as compared to the less democratic first person point of view.

Literature assists in seeing the other side or all sides by using multiple points of view. Indira mentioned a book by Barbara Kingsolver called The Poisonwood Bible. We’ve talked about this book in a previous BYOB Party too. You also have books by George R. R Martin and Dostoevsky. A famous example of one of the first polyphonous novels is Dangerous Liaisons or Les Liaisons dangereuse by French writer Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The novel tells the story of the moral decadence of aristocrats and ex-lovers Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont who embark on a game of seduction and manipulation for which they face unintended consequences.

More books in Part 4.

Exile and Justice @ BYOB Party in June 2017 (Part 7)

I’m in the process of reading Roberto Bolaño’s Last Evenings on Earth, his first short-story collection in English. The stories have a dreamy quality to them and speak about nameless faceless characters, probably signifying the feeling of exile and conflict that the Chilean exiled diaspora is so familiar with. I particularly enjoyed his stories about failed writers who grapple with failings within themselves and on a lighter note with poor marketing skills. I was excited to find this story about Bolaño’s writing style and watch this video about the man himself.

While Bolaño explored how the lack of justice could fragment societies and individuals, Michael Sandel writes about what exactly justice means. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel is a book based on a Harvard course taught by this esteemed professor. Sandel brings clarity to various issues in America including affirmative action, the conflict between utilitarianism and libertarianism, limits of the market, etc, and he links it to theories of justice by Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, etc.  “We need something like this pertaining to the Indian context,” Abhaya said.  Satish mentioned a surprising anecdote about the games he used to play as a thirteen-year-old, which included visiting an older intellectual friend who did very much what Sandel is doing in this book- outlining difficult cases and discussing for solutions. Apurba, a lawyer herself, talked about a case similar to one that Abhaya had picked out of the book and she compared the situation to the one in the book and movie Life of Pi.

Abhaya also talked about the fictional representation of the paradox of utilitarianism in Ursula Le Guin’s powerful short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

And with that, we have come to the end of an intense BYOB Party. Looking forward to the next one!