Join us for a conversation between Michael Sandel, 2025 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Laureate, and Professor Ngaire Woods, Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government. 

The conversation is followed by an audience Q&A and a drinks reception.

This event is hosted in coorporation with the Berggruen Institute.

Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel, a Harvard political philosopher whose books illuminate the hardest moral and civic questions of our time, and whose global lectures and public dialogues have shown it is possible to reason together across our differences, has been awarded the 2025 Berggruen Prize in Philosophy and Culture. Sandel's books — on justice, democracy, bioethics, the moral limits of markets, and meritocracy — have been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been described as a "rock star moralist" (Newsweek) and "the world's most influential living philosopher" (New Statesman).

Sandel's recent book, The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?, traces our polarised politics to the deepening divide between winners and losers in the age of globalisation. His classic work Democracy's Discontent, recently published in a new edition, warned that the market triumphalism of the 1980s and 1990s was eroding community and fueling a sense of disempowerment that could lead to dark places and imperil democracy. In these and other books, including Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?; What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets; and The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, Sandel argues that democratic discourse should engage rather than avoid the moral and spiritual convictions citizens bring to public life.

Extending the reach of philosophy beyond the academy, Sandel's legendary Harvard course "Justice" is freely available online and has been viewed by tens of millions of people, including in China, where he was named the "most influential foreign figure of the year" (China Newsweek). His BBC series "The Global Philosopher" explores the ethical issues lying behind the headlines with participants from around the world.

Sandel has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford, served on the President's Council on Bioethics, and received Spain's Princess of Asturias Award. His lectures have packed such venues as St. Paul's Cathedral in London, the Sydney Opera House, the Delacorte Theater in New York's Central Park, and an outdoor stadium in Seoul, South Korea, where 14,000 came to hear him speak.