#221 — Success, Failure, & the Common Good

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2020

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Michael Sandel about the problem with meritocracy . They discuss the dark side of the concept of merit, the pernicious myth of the self-made man, the moral significance of luck, the backlash against "elites" and expertise, how we value human excellence, the connection between wealth and value creation, the ethics of the tax code, higher education as a sorting mechanism for a caste system, alternatives to 4-year colleges, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
0:08.0	This is Sam Harris.
0:10.8	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.3	feed and will only be hearing partial episodes of the podcast.
0:17.7	If you'd like access to full episodes, you'll need to subscribe at samherris.org.
0:23.3	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:27.5	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.6	And as always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't listen to the podcast.
0:35.1	So if you can't afford a subscription, there's an option at samherris.org to request a free
0:39.4	account.
0:40.4	And we grant 100% of those requests, no questions asked.
0:46.3	Today I'm speaking with Michael Sandel.
0:49.6	Michael teaches political philosophy at Harvard University, where he teaches the quite famous
0:54.7	course on justice that has been televised and viewed by tens of millions of people.
1:00.5	And he's the author of several books, the most recent of which is The Tyranny of Merit,
1:06.1	What's Become of the Common Good.
1:08.6	And that is our focus in today's episode.
1:11.6	We talk about the ethics of success and failure in our society, the enduring problems with
1:19.8	capitalism.
1:20.8	How college has become a sorting mechanism for a new kind of caste system.
1:27.5	We cover what I have come to think of as the pernicious myth of the self-made man.
1:32.8	And we discuss the paradoxes which come from valuing excellence all the while recognizing
	...

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