I. Recollection

One Friday last autumn, a message dropped into my inbox announcing that Michael Sandel, a Harvard University political thinker, would be awarded the Berggruen Prize, a sort of Nobel for public philosophers.

My first thought was that Sandel, a lifetime critic of the kind of philosophical liberalism that has influenced western politics for half a century, was a deserving winner. The 72-year-old has taught at Harvard since 1980, but has reached far beyond the ivory tower with his hugely popular Socratic style of moral questioning, calling for a less market-dominated and more civic-minded public philosophy.

He has the ear of national leaders. His public lectures have drawn packed crowds to open-air stadiums, the Sydney Opera House and St Paul’s Cathedral. His undergraduate course, “Justice”, is one of Harvard’s most popular, drawing many hundreds of students a year. The online version, which is free to watch, has been visited by many millions of viewers including, notably, in China. Over the decades, Sandel has shaped the minds of tens of thousands of young people who have gone on to occupy privileged places in the global elite.