A Just Decision

Just last year alone, 872 students enrolled in Professor Michael Sandel’s legendary course, Moral Reasoning 22: “Justice.” But now that Harvard’s most popular class has been made into a public television series of 12 episodes on WGBH, there’s no telling how much larger its “enrollment” will be this season. And while the introduction of the new show “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” makes it easier to get a more comfortable seat and a better view of Sandel, it is also an admirable continuation of Harvard’s commitment to its Extension School programs and to sharing its academic resources with the larger community.

Most of the “Justice” lectures have already been available online for some time, through its own website or through other Harvard Extension School portals. The creation of the television series was a natural decision for a course that has been so popular for so long among both current Harvard students and alumni.

Indeed, the selection of “Justice” as the Harvard class to broadcast to the world in this fashion was a good one, for its material is more than just interesting or engaging. Drawing on thinkers from Aristotle to John Rawls, the course has the potential to be a formative experience, one in which viewers will undoubtedly be forced to reflect on important moral questions and decide for themselves where exactly they stand. Though surely not the only venue for such important debates, a course as relevant as “Justice” that appeals to so many is an apt choice, and many viewers will benefit from its presence on the airwaves.

While the television show will naturally reach a much larger audience than the course ever has, we hope that this extension of information beyond Harvard also takes place on the Internet and in other media forms other than television. To that end, it is encouraging to see that the show’s website already includes interactive online content that will enable viewers to participate more actively in the debates they encounter on the show. Each episode features discussion guides at beginner and advanced levels; there are also pop quizzes, discussion circles, and downloadable versions of the readings.

But the best thing about this new television program is that, with it, Harvard has shared some of its incredible academic resources with the rest of the world and has invited the public to join its unique academic community. Just as “Justice” itself urges students to reconsider their beliefs and approaches to action, it is good to see Harvard open its long-closed gates in dialogue with the local and national communities.