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Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 01 "THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER"

Harvard University · 42.7M views · 2009-09-04 · 54:56

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Overview

The first episode of Michael Sandel's Harvard course on moral reasoning, opening with the trolley problem and the choice between killing one to save five. Sandel draws out student arguments and introduces utilitarian and other approaches to justice.

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One of the most frequently recommended online lecture series on HN, praised for giving people vocabulary to examine ethical positions and for Sandel's skilled teaching.

Recommended by 11 HN people across 12 months · HN mentions 2013–2025

Topics

Philosophy & ethicsUniversity lectures & courses
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trolley problemethicsmichael sandeljusticeutilitarianismharvard

What people said

mettamage · 2020-04 · Strong recommendation

Indirectly related, if you have some time to spare follow Harvard's course in ethics! [1] Here is why: while it didn't teach me anything new (in a sense), it did give me a vocabulary to better articulate myself. Having new words to describe certain ideas means you have more analytical tools at your disposal. So you'll be able to examine your own ethical stance better. It takes some time, but instead of watching Netflix (if that's a thing you do), watch this instead! Although, The Good Place is a pretty good Netflix show sprinkling some basic ethics in there. [1] [VIDEO]

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ljiljana · 2018-04 · Strong recommendation

Came here to suggest Robert Sapolsky's class as well. I would also add Michael Sandel's Justice: What's the right thing to do? [VIDEO] great course on moral reasoning, covers different theories of justice based on ideas from Aristotle, Kant, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls and many more, extremely well presented too.

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nopinsight · 2017-07 · Strong recommendation

Unfortunately, no one can really articulate the full set of human values yet, especially since they are often in conflict in real-world situations. Which value(s) should be prioritized over others? How about differing values between cultures and human groups within each culture? You might have heard of the Trolley Problem. There are many and more complicated variations of that. This Harvard session on Justice (The Moral Side of Murder) is edifying and surprisingly fun to watch: [VIDEO] The problem with AGI is more acute than most other technologies because it is software-based, which makes it nigh impossible to regulate effectively, especially globally.

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Sources

Video by Harvard University, played through YouTube.

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