Justice

Content-wise, Justice is really a kick. Filmed in a Harvard auditorium during a lecture by Professor Michael Sandel in his course on moral reasoning, Justice effectively demonstrates that the wisdom of the ages has much relevance for us today. Ranging from Plato to Jeremy Bentham's doctrine of Utilitarianism to Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind (on the Scopes trial), Professor Sandel does a magnificent job of relating age-old ideas about justice to contemporary issues such as affirmative action and the teaching of creationism in schools. In one amusing sequence, Sandel discusses an experiment in which people were asked to put a price tag on various acts and privations: losing a tooth, losing a toe, living in Kansas, eating a worm, and strangling a cat. The most expensive, and therefore most objectionable, of the options turned out to be living in Kansas for which people asked $300,000 in compensation. Production-wise, Justice has a problem: the large chamber in which the video is shot has a tendency to cause the sound to reverberate, requiring that viewers listen very closely to questions and answers from the student audience (Sandel is apparently wearing a mike, and his voice is quite clear). Still, high school and university libraries may want to add this very inspirational program featuring an exceptionally good instructor. (Available from: Zenger Video, 10200 Jefferson Blvd., Room J, P.O. Box 802, Culver City, CA 90232-0802; 1-800-421-4246.)