YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Sandel

lines on the record: 33
first: 2021-09-10
most recent: 2021-09-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“They are not the best credential best paid most honored members of our society. But now we were calling them keyworkers, essential workers, and this could be the glimmer, an intimation of a society that shares more broadly a sense that we are all in this together and that reflects that sensibility in the way we allocate income and wealth, but also recognition and esteem.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that the systems we've been discussing, the one that holds out the greatest hope for treating people with respect is a version of social democracy that is concerned not only with distributive justice, which is very important, but also with contributive justice, making sure that everyone, whatever their job, whatever their social role, is respected and accorded dignity and esteem for the contributions they make. I think that's one of the things we've learned during the pandemic. Those of us with the luxury of working from home during the pandemic came to recognize how deeply we depend on workers we often overlook, delivery workers, warehouse workers, grocery store clerks, care workers. These are not at the top of the meritocratic heat.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I deserve is my doing, makes it hard to see myself. In other people's shoes, appreciating the role of luck in life, though, can prompt a certain humility. There, but for the accident of birth or the grace of God or the mystery of fate, go I this spirit of humility is the civic virtue we need now. It's the beginning of the way back, from the harsh ethic of success that drives us apart. It points beyond the tyranny of merit toward a less rancorous and perhaps more generous public life.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We shouldn't confuse meritocracy with the principle of equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity is a good and important principle. No one should be held back due to prejudice or coming from a poor family. But equality of opportunity is a remedial principle. It's not an adequate principle for a just society or for a good society. Meritocracy is, though, is something else. It's the idea that if chances are equal, the winners deserve their winnings. And it's that idea of deservingness based on talents that needs to be defended. And I don't think we've heard a convincing defense of it. I think we need also a kind of moral turning because the moral case for meritocracy is really the heart of the issue. Insisting that my success is something”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the rich are rich because they are more deserving than the poor or would be if we could level the playing field, then one has to be consistent take all of these radical meritocratic measures to make the playing field level enough to vindicate the principle of moral deservingness. I reject that. Well, asking how we can make life more dignified for the people we've been calling key workers during the pandemic, most of whom don't have the meritocratic credentials and the high test scores.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the talented are morally deserving. He doesn't show how we can vindicate that idea without giving everyone a truly equal start. Now there is an alternative, which is to focus less on making life a race, to focus less on arming people for meritocratic competition, and to focus more on the dignity of work, to focus more on making life better for everyone, whether they are well credentialed, whether they are do well on IQ tests or not, and that's the political agenda that I would favor. But if one rejects the idea of regarding the distribution of talents and gifts as a kind of common asset,”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the consequences of more meritocracy If one takes seriously the idea of breaking the link between parental privilege and the opportunity of children, the only way really to do that is to double down on the meritocratic principle and ban private tutors have confiscatory inheritance taxes, abolished the family and genetically engineered for IQ. Now, Adrian describes genetic engineering as abomination and confiscatory inheritance taxes as absurdities, but he doesn't say why. I agree that these are undesirable. I'm not in favor of them. But he doesn't have a principled argument to show us how he can save the idea of moral deservingness for the talented, because that's at the heart of the meritocratic principle.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To genetically engineer IQ but one of the people who suggested genetic engineering as a way to level the playing field and perfect meritocracy was the son of Michael Young, Toby Young, who unlike his father, favors meritocracy, but he recognizes. He recognizes the unfairness that you can't base deservingness on IQ if it's simply a matter of the genetic lottery.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In unequal ways to rig the system and pass their privilege on to their kids that has made meritocracy into a kind of hereditary aristocracy. So the real, if Adrian wants more meritocracy, would he ban expenditure on private tutors? Would he abolish the family? And what about a one hundred percent inheritance tax? That would be a way of perfecting meritocracy by saying each generation begins anew. Is Adrian in favor of a one hundred percent inheritance tax? And finally, since Adrian emphasizes intellectual capacities in IQ, there is a further measure. What about thanks to new technology, genetic engineering for cognitive enhancement to lift up those who have low?”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of an examination driven meritocracy as we are, but it seems to me if Adrian really wants to double down on meritocracy, more meritocracy can't simply be to rely more on standardized tests. That's rather if you'll forgive me weak tea, there are much more if one wants more meritocracy. The Chinese example of banning these private tutoring companies could be one quite modest, but for that matter one could go all the way to Plato, whom Adrian invoked, who said the only real way to have to perfect a meritocracy is to abolish the family because precisely its families being able”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And other top universities come from low-income or rural backgrounds. They are encountering the same worries and objections that we have. And one of the measures they've taken, which is connected to a question, I think Richela, we should ask Adrian what he really means by more meritocracies. He's emphasized more rigorous subjective tests. One of the measures China has taken to try to deal with the unfair advantages built in to an examination system is they have banned the private tutoring industry, which is a hundred billion dollars industry globally, because they think it confers unfair advantages on those who can afford it. So China is struggling with the same defects.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All right, but let's look at the role that examination system plays in China. The Gao is the name of the University Entrance Exam for which children from the time they are very young are drilled and crammed and prepared. And China now is worried about the effects of the Gao system, of the enormous pressures, and also the wasted time and resources that families devote through a life through the adolescent years to preparing their children for this exam, they are worried and rightly about the fact that the outcome of the Gao the Chinese entrance exam disproportionately favors the wealthy. They are worried that only about fifteen percent of the students admitted to Qinhua University.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, China is a meritocracy. I think it's rather a stretch to see China as a meritocracy. It's true, as Adrian says, that there is a long Confucian tradition that emphasizes not the kind of technocratic merit that tends to predominate in meritocracies today, but a meritocracy of virtue. This is the Confucian tradition and it's a rich and important tradition. But to infer from that tradition that somehow China is a meritocracy and we had better...”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The meritocratic idea that those who make the most money in a free market deserve those winnings. So one alternative, Richelieu, to answer your question, would be a liberal free market society that dropped the meritocratic assumption. And I would say the meritocratic hubris associated with the idea that the winners deserve their winnings. Another alternative to a meritocratic society would be also to reject meritocratic hubris, to reject the idea that the rich are rich because they are more deserving than the poor. And that would be, broadly speaking, a social democratic society which there are many versions that considered the winnings of the winners not theirs as a matter of desert. Any number of versions of social democratic society”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That dropped the moral pretense that says the winners deserve their winnings, that drops the pretense, that those who land on top deserve their success, and that those who struggle must deserve their fate as well. One could embrace I don't favor this alternative, but one could perfectly well embrace the kind of liberal market society that Friedrich Hayek argued for. Hayek argues, Adrian doesn't like Rawls's argument against the moral arbitrariness of talents. Hayek, we should remember, made exactly the same argument that talents, that talents are arbitrary from a moral point of view, and therefore he rejected Haycted.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For someone from a low income family to reach the average income two generations in the US and the UK, it takes five generations. And so I think, and I'll turn to the alternatives, Richula. But it's not as though we have a functioning meritocracy with social mobility, the most nominally meritocratic societies, the US and the UK, have less intergenerational mobility than most of the Northern European countries and then Japan and then Canada. So I think we should recognize that. As for the alternatives, I think there are two broad alternatives to a meritocracy that claims to reward people according to their deservingness in the exercise of their talents. Would be a liberal free market society”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Upward mobility, opportunity for those from below, as Adrian said in his opening statement. It's not a matter of displacing it. We don't have one. If we look at the United States and the UK in terms of mobility, it's very unlikely for people to rise from poor backgrounds, low income backgrounds, bottom 20% to the top. In the United States, only about 5% manage that to rise from the bottom 20% to the top. And most people, only about a third, even make it to the middle. The UK and the US are among the worst of the rich developed countries in terms of intergenerational mobility in Denmark. It takes two generations.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, just if I could quickly add one other word about standardized tests and race in 1951, there was an applicant to Boston University Graduate School who scored on the standardized test below average in verbal ability. They admitted him nonetheless. His name was Martin Luther King Jr., one of the great orators in American history. On the standardized test, he was below average in verbal ability. As far as alternatives to meritocracy, first, we should recognize that the question is not really whether to get rid of meritocracy and to put in something else, it's to begin by recognizing that if meritocracy is a system that promotes”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Accurate measures of a singular talent, cognitive ability that the society needs, then all the more reason To notice that even on Adrian's theory, if there is such a thing as innate cognitive ability on the basis of which opportunity and power should be distributed, that is not the doing of the person who possesses it. And therefore, it can't be the basis of deservingness.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it is certainly true that the history of IQ testing and of mental testing as a way of allocating opportunities is bound up with the history of eugenics, which is in large part a racist legacy. And so I myself very much dislike and am skeptical that there is a single quality called talent that is equivalent to cognitive ability, which in turn can be tested from a young age by an IQ test. And I think that this is in the legacy of the people you know who used to measure the size of skulls phrenologists to try to determine who had the greatest brain size. IQ tests used to allocate income and wealth and opportunity and power, I think do still reflect that eugenic legacy. So I am very skeptical of them, but I could be wrong, and Adrian will tell me why I'm wrong. But if I'm wrong about that, and if IQ tests are”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“difference between the accident of birth that lands someone on top in a feudal aristocracy and the accident of birth that lands someone on top if we had a society truly governed by the fair objective IQ tests that Adrian wants. What's the moral difference in terms of deservingness? That's the question.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that Adrian just tried to make about effort. Even those who were admitted with a legacy preference work very hard. The majority of children of alumni who applied don't get in. So they work hard too. They aren't so advantaged by the legacy preference that they don't need to expend effort. I think Adrian would consider that a very weak defense of the fairness of legacy admissions, saying they have to work hard too. I say that that weak argument in defense of legacy admissions is a weak argument generally. It's an evasion with respect to the question, what is the difference? And I think Richela, we should, in fairness, give Adrian a chance to address this question.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Works and trains in relation to the second place finisher. So effort is an evasion of the question. And we can see, Richula, that it's an abasion. If we take, as a small example, one of the cases that Adrian raised, I agree with him, that Harvard and other universities should not give an advantage to the children of alumni. And in fact, at Harvard, if you're the child of an alumnus, your chances of admission are one in three. The majority still don't make it, but one in three if you're not the child of an alumnus, your chance of admission is about one in twenty five. It's unfair. But suppose someone defended the legacy preference with exactly the argument”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, effort is admirable, but it's no answer to the challenge I put to Adrian for a couple of reasons. First, what he really wants is selection by IQ tests, standardized tests, then it's strange that he would invoke effort, why not select students based on how hard they work? Even the devoted meritocrat who invokes effort, which does seem to be our own doing, doesn't really believe that the gold medal in the Olympics should go to the athlete who works the hardest or who perspires the most. And I suspect Adrian thinks the gold medal should go to the fastest runner regardless of how much he or she perspires.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the accident of birth involved in being born gifted or with the talents society happens to prize. If someone happens to be born with a high IQ Are they any more deserving? Then someone who happens to be born into the upper class. That's the question for Adrian, and I'm eager to hear what he has to say.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Second, the fact that these great footballers live in a society that loves football, that's not their doing. That too is their good luck. Ed Ronaldo lived back in the days of the Renaissance. They didn't care much about football. They were more interested in Fresco painting. So these are two elements of moral contingency that undermine the idea that the talented, if we could identify them somehow without any class bias that the talented deserve all the benefits that flow from the exercise of their talent. So here's the question. It's a question for Adrian. A question for any defender of meritocracy. What is the difference? Morally between the accident of birth Being To a well-off family, or in the upper class,”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The winnings that would flow to them in a meritocratic competitive society. Is there having an IQ a high IQ? Or is their ability to do well on standardized tests? Is that their doing or is that their good fortune? There are two contingencies to do with the way talents could be rewarded. First, having this or that talent. Is not one's own doing think of a great athlete like Ronaldo or Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney. Having the talent, great athletic talent, that's a gift.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is one problem. Now you might say Well, the solution to this problem is simply more meritocracy, improve educational opportunity for low-income students so they can compete on a level playing field. Yes, by all means we should do that. But suppose that we could somehow counteract, it's unlikely, counteract all of the advantages of family background in meritocratic competition Then what? Then hypothetically whoever did best on objective tests, standardized tests, aptitude tests like the American SAT. They would win admission. But because those tests would then truly measure talent IQ intellectual promise. But that raises a further question. Because remember, we're talking about moral deservingness. Why do the talented, the gifted, as defined even by the best IQ test you could imagine? Why did they deserve”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We see this today In American universities, most of the students At selective colleges and universities in the United States are from affluent families, very few from poor backgrounds. You look at the hundred or so most competitive universities in the United States, more than 70% of those who attend come from the top quarter of the income scale, how many from the bottom quarter 3%. If you look at the most prestigious places, the Ivy League and Stanford and such places, there are more students from the top 1% than from families in the bottom half of the country combined. Put it another way. If you come from a rich family in the top 1%, your chances of attending an Ivy League school are 77 times greater than if you come from a poor family, and this is despite generous financial aid to those from poor backgrounds.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can't really be said that those who land on top deserve their place. They don't deserve their place because it's not their doing they haven't earned it. They've lucked into it. That's what's wrong with a feudal or hereditary aristocracy. Meritocracy seems to offer a solution to this problem. If careers are open to talents, and if everyone has an equal chance to develop their talents, then it can be said so the meritocrat argues that the winners deserve their winnings. But can it be said that the winners in a meritocracy deserve their winnings? No, not really for two reasons. First is to do with differences in upbringing, family background, the second is to do with talents. Even if everyone can attend a good school, even if everyone is free to take university entrance exams, still it's the case that those from supported families are”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“well have been incompetent. Meanwhile, there were many gifted, talented people, serfs, peasants, harvesting potatoes. That's the practical objection. The objection of inefficiency. But the second objection to a class-based society or an aristered hereditary aristocracy is the moral objection. It's unfair. Why is it unfair? Because people's life prospects are determined in a hereditary aristocracy by the accident of birth, and when that's the case.”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ideal can be summed up in a simple proposition. It chances are equal, the winners deserve their winnings. Notice this is a moral claim. It goes well beyond the practical proposition that it's a good thing to have well-qualified surgeons and airline pilots. Now, this is really the heart, the moral argument, is really the heart of the case for meritocracy if one can be made. And it arises typically in the following way by asking the question what was wrong with a feudal aristocracy, a hereditary aristocracy, or a class based society? There are two answers to this question. The first is a practical objection. Hereditary aristocracies were inefficient because those who landed on top”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Become of the common good. Michael, over to you. Thank you, Ritula. Adrian, good to be with you. To begin, we need to distinguish two ideas that are often muddled, often confused. The first is the idea of merit in the sense of competence. That's a good thing. The second is meritocracy. That's a problem. If I need surgery, I want a well qualified surgeon to perform it. If I'm flying in an airplane, I want a well qualified pilot in the cockpit. Aligning people's skills with the jobs and social roles they perform, that's a good thing unsensible practical grounds. But that's not meritocracy. Meritocracy is something different. Meritocracy is an ethic of earning and deserving. It's a system of rule based on deservingness. By a system of rule, I mean a way of allocating income and wealth, power, honor, esteem. The meritocratic”
2021-09-10 · Intelligence Squared · Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source