Michael Joseph Sandel was born in 1953 in Minneapolis and grew up in California. He studied political theory at Brandeis University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, earned a doctorate in political philosophy from Balliol College, University of Oxford, while already teaching at Harvard, where he is Professor of Government. His philosophical standpoint is associated with communitarianism, and he criticises John Rawls’s liberalism, arguing that justice should be grounded in the common good rather than in an abstract notion of individual autonomy.
A central element of his contribution is the course series “Justice”, which has been taught at Harvard since 1980 and applies the Socratic method of instruction through dialogue. The course has been attended by numerous students and was the first Harvard course to be made freely available online, now reaching millions of viewers worldwide. The success of the course contributed to Sandel’s prominence as a public philosopher with broad appeal and has led to his ongoing participation in public discussions on the ethics of biotechnology, markets, and artificial intelligence.
His major works include the books “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice” (1982), in which he critiques liberalism, “Democracy’s Discontent” (1996), which examines the crisis of democracy; and “What Money Can’t Buy” (2012), in which he explores the moral limits of markets. The book “The Tyranny of Merit” (2020) analyses how the obsession with meritocracy erodes social cohesion, while his recent collaboration with the economist Thomas Piketty in “Equality: What It Means and Why It Matters” (2025) investigates the concept of equality and proposes solutions for addressing inequalities.
Sandel has been honoured with numerous distinctions, including the Princess of Asturias Award (2018). He has delivered the Tanner Lectures and the Reith Lectures and is regarded by the international press as one of the most influential philosophers of his time. He continues to foster public dialogue on critical issues of our era, from artificial intelligence to social justice, while teaching successive generations of students at Harvard.
