Human Rights


Sub Topics:
Putting a Price Tag on Life / How to Measure Pleasure
Michael Sandel
September 20, 2009
00:55:09
Lecture Three: "Putting a Price Tag on Life" Jeremy Bentham's late 18th century Utilitarian theory -- summed up as "the greatest good for the greatest number" -- is often used today under the name of "cost-benefit analysis." Sandel presents some contemporary examples where corporations used this th
The Moral Side of Murder / The Case for Cannibalism
Michael Sandel
September 13, 2009
00:54:56
Lecture One: "The Moral Side of Murder" If you had to choose between killing one person or five, what would you do? What's the right thing to do?
Audio-only
Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age
Marcus Rediker
June 25, 2004
00:48:42
Marcus Rediker discusses his book, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, an unprecedented social and cultural history of pirates and their democratic, egalitarian and multiethnic society.
Fixing Elections: America's Winner-Take-All Politics
Fixing Elections: America's Winner-Take-All Politics
Steven Hill
December 31, 1969
01:13:50
Political analyst Steven Hill discusses his book, Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner-Take-All Politics (Routledge, 2002).
Change Haiti Can Believe In: Part I
Change Haiti Can Believe In: Part I
Paul Farmer
December 31, 1969
00:45:19
Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health; actor and activist Matt Damon, who recently visited Haiti to assist victims devastated by hurricanes; Massachusetts State Representative and Haitian-American Linda Dorcena Forry; and Brian Concannon, Jr., director of the Institute for Justice and Democr
Hired Guns? / For Sale: Motherhood
Michael Sandel
October 11, 2009
00:55:10
Lecture Nine: "Hired Guns?" During the Civil War, men were conscripted to fight in the war -- but draftees were allowed to pay hired substitutes to fight in their place. Professor Sandel asks students -- was this policy an example of free-market exchange?
Free to Choose / Who Owns Me?
Michael Sandel
September 27, 2009
00:55:07
Lecture Five: "Free to Choose" Libertarians believe the ideal state is a society with minimal governmental interference. Sandel introduces Robert Nozick, a libertarian philosopher, who argues that individuals have the fundamental right to choose how they want to live their own lives.
Debating Same-Sex Marriage / The Good Life
Michael Sandel
November 29, 2009
00:55:10
Lecture Twenty-Two: "Debating Same-Sex Marriage" If principles of justice depend on the moral or intrinsic worth of the ends that rights serve, how does society deal with the fact that people hold different ideas and conceptions of what is good?