This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures.

This lecture in the series A New Citizenship, given by Michael Sandell, was originally broadcast in 2009.

Hello and welcome to the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House for the first in this year's series of Reith Lectures.

Their title is a new citizenship citizenship addressing the prospect of a new

politics for the common good. There could probably be no better time to tackle such a challenging

subject. In America, a new president, very different from his predecessor, is trying to give

new direction to a country that many people feel had begun to flounder beneath the complexities it faces.

In Europe, the financial crisis, tinged in Britain by recent revelations of parliamentary misbehavior,

has felt as though it might undermine the whole structure of government.

This year's lecturer believes we need to think afresh about what we

mean by the common good, to think about whether we need to foster deeper moral and spiritual

values in our public life. Our social, sexual, economic and scientific freedoms throw up many

difficult ethical questions. How he asks,

should we develop the moral systems we need to cope with them? He's one of today's most

eminent philosophers and political thinkers. His course on justice at Harvard University

is one of the most oversubscribed in the history of the place,

and his books have received worldwide acclaim. So I

ask you, please, ladies and gentlemen, to welcome

the BBC Reith Lecturer for

2009, Michael Sandell.

Thank you. Welcome, Michael.

First and most importantly of all,

...