Happy Birthday, Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel

The Harvard political philosophy professor (born March 5, 1953) talks about justice, how to figure out the right thing to do. Sandel says we need to discuss spiritual and moral questions with those with whom we disagree. He feels liberalism has ceded ground to the conservatives on spiritual and moral issues and must reclaim it. Sandel’s course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world. PS Sandel is widely considered to be the model for the Mr. Burns character on the Simpsons tv show. As a prominent professor, Sandel is well-known among Harvard grads, some of whom went to work on the Simpsons. The joke of modeling Mr. Burns after Sandel is that Burns is the cartoon’s least just character.