Brandeis Magazine

Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel’s legendary class “Justice” has gone global. According to an article in The New York Times written by classmate Thomas Friedman, Japan’s NHK TV broadcast a translated version of the lectures, which sparked a philosophy craze in Japan and prompted the University of Tokyo to create a course based on Sandel’s. In China, volunteer translators subtitled the lectures and uploaded them to Chinese websites, where they have attracted millions of viewers. Sandel’s recent book, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” has sold more than a million copies in East Asia alone. According to Friedman, Sandel’s popularity in Asia is due to the growth of online education, a craving in Asia for a more creative, discussion-based style of teaching, and the hunger of young people to engage in moral reasoning and debates.