The Incoherence of Michael Sandel's Critique of Liberalism: A Review of 'Liberalism and the Limits of Justice'

Michael Sandel is one of America’s best-known political philosophers, and helped establish his reputation with a widely respected and still widely taught book, "Liberalism and the Limits of Justice." That’s surprising, given that the central argument in this book is based on fundamental errors in reasoning.

In this 9,600 word essay, Wes Alwan of The Partially Examined Life provides a lucid description of Sandel’s argument and its failings. He concludes with a commentary on the anti-liberal academic project in general, and its effects on American discourse by way of identity politics. According to a now-popular conception of the self, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and other forms of group membership are meant to serve as foundations for a richer version of the self than liberal individualism can supply. But in its abandonment of the individual, this conception is generic, impoverished, and dehumanizing.