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Should a banker be paid more than a nurse?
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"My image of a banker is an overweight man behind a desk" says Alice. The audience bursts into laughter. "My image of a nurse," she goes on, "is an overworked woman who works night shifts and is constantly on her feet".
Michael Sandel asks "So by that logic, Alice, maybe there's a case for paying nurses more than bankers. Am I right?"
Alice agrees and so begins Michael Sandel's journey through the morality of fair pay.
He explores whether fair pay is a question of the importance of the contribution one makes, whether it is a reward for effort ...and whether it's the market that should define how much people should get paid.
He questions whether Wayne Rooney gets the pay he deserves for "kicking a pigskin around a field for a certain period of time".
In this series of public events, recorded at the London School of Economics, he challenges his audience to apply critical thinking and philosophical reasoning to a host of ethical dilemmas most people rely on gut instinct to resolve.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
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Tuesday, 09:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM
3/3. Questioning the morality of paying people to lose weight, quit smoking or abandon alcohol.
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