3.1: The Morality of the Market
Watch this lecture until 27:06. Consider the following question: is it an abuse of the government's power for it to order citizens to risk their lives in the military? In this lecture, Sandel calls the libertarian conception of self-ownership, along with the Lockean conception of consent, into question by confronting it with the controversial case of military conscription. The problem is further complicated by the fact that military conflicts take place within a market economy. This aspect of the problem is brought out in the Civil War practice in which the wealthy hired less affluent citizens to fight in their place.
This article is a reaction to Michael Sandel's ideas on the moral limits of markets. What things do you think money should not buy? What principle should legislators use to write laws about these matters?