Other animals can make sounds, and sounds can indicate pleasure and pain. But language, a distinctly human capacity, isnยดt just for registering pleasure and pain. Itยดs about declaring what is just and what is unjust, and distinguishing right from wrong. We donยดt grasp these things silently, and then put words to them; language is the medium through which we discern and deliberate about the good.
Michael SandelI do not argue that nature is sacrosanct in the sense that we must never tamper with nature. That would disempower, really, all of medicine. That would mean that we can't combat dread diseases - malaria, polio, all of which are given by nature, if one thinks about it.
Michael SandelThere are some religious traditions that view human beings as participants in creation. This is true of the Jewish tradition, from which I come.
Michael SandelThe norm of unconditional parental love, I think, depends on the fact that we don't pick and choose the traits of our children in the way that we pick and choose the features of a car we might order, or a consumer good.
Michael SandelI have a broad but not an expert or scholarly background in the Jewish tradition. I've tried to learn what I can from childhood, but I am not an expert on Jewish teachings.
Michael SandelParental love is not contingent on the talents and attributes the child happens to have. We choose our friends and spouses at least partly on the basis of qualities we find attractive. But we do not choose our children. Their qualities are unpredictable, and even the most conscientious parents cannot be held wholly responsible for the kind of child they have. That is why parenthood, more than other human relationships, teaches what the theologian William F. May calls an โopenness to the unbidden.
Michael Sandel