Justice: Fairness and the Big Society

Philosophy

What is fairness?

From the Royal Institution in London, Harvard professor Michael Sandel hosts a discussion to explore fairness in public policy and the Big Society. An audience of politicians, opinion-formers and the general public should ensure a lively and topical debate.

For me, the most attractive interpretation is that each person is of equal worth and should have the opportunity - ideally, an equal opportunity - to access goods, but most of the goods themselves will be proportionally distributed, according to need in some cases and merit in others to achieve a decent "social mobility". In sociology and economics, as well as in common political discourse, social mobility refers to the degree to which an individual or group's status is able to change in terms of position in the social hierarchy. To this extent it most commonly refers to material wealth and the ability of an agent to move up the class system. Such a change may be described as "vertical mobility," by contrast with a more general change in position ("horizontal mobility").

* First broadcast: BBC Four, 9:00PM Sun, 23 Jan 2011