This chapter delves into the debate surrounding paying children for good grades or reading books, examining the impact on intrinsic motivation and personal achievements. It discusses contrasting views on incentivizing behaviors like weight loss and reading, exploring whether monetary rewards enhance societal benefit or diminish personal gratification. The chapter also examines the value of skills acquisition, questioning the implications of government involvement in payments for skills and the role of recognition in the teacher-student relationship.
Should we pay children to get good grades? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? Michael Sandel is one of the world's most acclaimed and popular political philosophers. He has given the BBC Reith lectures and his online lectures for Harvard University attract millions of views. In this talk from May 2012 he looked at the role of markets in a democratic society, and asked how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honour and money cannot buy?
—
We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.
Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.
And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared..
Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices