The Texas Book Festival today filled the Capitol building and overran 
4-5 blocks
south with booths and presentations that I expect all of you would 
have enjoyed.
It'll be the same tomorrow.  Sandel had to use our restored Paramount Theater
as his venue, and it was filled.  Some of you may have seen him on 
Public T.V.,
and this presentation was right in line with that series.

He began on a note from Aristotle that some of you may find interesting and
valuable in the classroom.  What to do about flutes?  Yes, 
flutes.  Suppose you
have an array of instruments that rank from good to not so 
good.  Should the best
ones go to the best flute players because they can make the prettiest 
music and
entertain the most people?

No, though that would be the utilitarian view related the 
professor.  The best flutes
should go to the best players for a different reason.  The purpose of 
excellent flutes
is to make excellent music, and that can be accomplished best by 
allocating them
to the leading musicians.  Aristotle's solution was guided by what he 
considered to
be the goal, purpose, objective of the activity.  The telos.

Sandel didn't stop with flutes.

Do you remember, maybe, a S.C. case at least a decade ago in which 
the Americans
With Disabilities Act was the basis for ordering the PGA to allow a 
crippled player to
use a golf cart, while normally players would walk from hole to 
hole?  The Aristotelean
basis was that the essence of golf, the real purpose of the game, was 
to demonstrate
skill in getting the ball from the tee into the next hole, not 
walking between holes.
Stevens  in the 7-2 majority didn't mention this, nor did Scalia in dissent.

By now, everyone in the audience was thinking, "Hey, I can do 
this.  What next?"

Same-sex marriage.

Hello!

Well, what's the purpose, goal, end, objective, telos of marriage?

Love and affection between two human beings?  Between a man and a 
woman only?  Is
child-bearing the principal objective?

The audience was scooped by a libertarian solution.  The state has no 
business deciding
the matter, and should allow couples to proceed with their lives in a 
sphere of privacy.
With minimal restrictions, license should be granted by the state to 
those who apply,
and this couple should be free to seek a secular ceremony or a 
religious one (assuming
one's religion permitted same-sex unions).

We didn't pursue this further because time was running thin, but this 
only shoves the issue
back a notch, I suppose, to ask about the goal, purpose, etc., of a 
state.  Maybe that discus-
sion would have totally consumed the time.  Anyway, there was another issue.

Guess what?

Health care.

If libertarians were going to slide one by Aristotle (if they did 
that in the marriage issue above),
why shouldn't the audience join the ranks of young, healthy people 
who are willing to risk not
getting sick in the near future, and/or those who object to having 
their money taken to pay for
other people's health care?

In practically the last minute, Sandel -- who, by the way, has no 
more affection for Robert Nozick
than he does for John Rawls -- offered the following possibility, and 
there was no time for discussion.
The state is more than a collection of separate, autonomous 
individuals.  If people could opt-out
of health care, why not opt-out of taxes for national defense, 
federal research projects, schools,
roads, courts, hospitals and other institutions that are essential to 
the quality of life that a majority
of people seem to find to be worthwhile.

There are many other services/functions one could add to this, but if 
the libertarian/tea baggers had
more time to make an argument (or any time at all), I expect they 
would have said, "Well, yeah, but
if you keep on adding services and taxes, soon you've got (dare I use 
the S word) socialism."

Anyway, this was a very interesting day that Monica and I rounded off 
with a book about Bonnie
and Clyde (the Warren Beatty movie wasn't even close), a new book by 
Richard Russo (I've forgotten
the title), Taylor Branch (The Clinton Tapes), and Ross Sorkin (Too 
Big To Fail).

Doggone it, missed Margaret Atwood, but tomorrow's packed with some 
more good 'ens.