We first posted this neat find about a week ago, but in case you missed it, we have an update. In short, Justice is the name of a class taught by Dr. Michael Sandel at Harvard University, and it's so good, they've posted full lectures online. He's excellent at asking questions and garnering feedback from his students.
However, we know that pleasure is not always accurate in taking account our goals and priorities; for instance, it may be awesome to watch a 12-hour marathon of House, MD but that to-do list wouldn't clean itself up.
So how can we better define pleasure?
Dr. Sandel provides in the answer in an sticky way, from 38:55-48:21. Watch below to see what we mean.
Here's our dissection.
- Simple - The educated are able to discern higher and lower pleasures.
- Unexpected - Use of video clips breaks people's expectations of boring old philosophy.
- Concrete - He references and reiterates key examples.
- Credible - You bet - they're discussing one of the great utilitarian philosophers of all time!
- Emotion - There was some humor.
- Stories - It was missing but could have been integrated.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.What do you think?