What Do We Know One Another Sandel Summary

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In, What Do We Know One Another?: Dilemmas of Loyalty, by Michael J Sandel, Sandel attempts to answer an undying question regarding the obligations of morality that people are suppose to have, along with the rest of society. Sandel tries to figure out if individuals in society should do more than they already do when it comes to being generous to others. The chapter first began with examples of countries that have paid reparations for their wrongdoings in previous history. One example was Germany apologizing for the attitudes and misrepresentation of German’s when the Holocaust had occured. Although it’s a positive thing to apologize for their wrongdoings, Sandel believes that one is responsible for their OWN actions and are not responsible …show more content…

Moral subjectivism describes that it is an individual's choice to choose what their thoughts on a specific subject is. They do not have to depend on the thoughts of others choices. These types of moral obligations that one may have are voluntary and natural duties. Voluntary obligations come from when one wants to do something that would end up benefiting another, but they’d have to do so under a contract or promise and they would have to keep their promise/contract under legal obligation. Natural duties, according to John Rawls, are obligations that individuals choose in order for them to decide whether or not they’d want to help another individual. In other words, natural duties would be the first, and original, position that they first would’ve chosen to help shape other individuals in society. Sandel comes with the idea that it is unjust for the world to only choose these obligations because it absolutely limits an individual's right to choose whether or not they want to act morally. So, the article speaks of him attempting to create his own type obligation which concludes to acting voluntary, but not having to ask for consent. We would consider this as obligations of

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