“This talk is about how we have too little choice. As a society we are giving people choices when then don’t need them and depriving them of choices where they do.”
After assuring the audience that one didn’t need to know a “single thing about psychology to understand and disagree” with his talk, he explained that America was “broken.” All the most fundamental institutions of a functioning society—healthcare, education, criminal justice, banking, politics– “do not work the way that they should.” Our carrots and sticks seem to miss the point, or make things worse.
To resolve the problem one need only return to the ancient Greeks. “We need virtue,” he said. “A virtue that Aristotle referred to as ‘practical wisdom.’” It is very simple, really. Practical wisdom is “the will to do the right thing and the skill to figure out what the right thing is. “
“Wise people know when and how to make the exception to every rule,” Schwartz said.
Wisdom, he said, is “moral jazz”. Where a great jazz musician must be a genius of improvisation, so too are those who are wise. Add to that, simple empathy and the ability to choose among virtues or rules when they conflict. There is often a choice between being honest and being kind, and they make the right choice.
The essential common ingredient for all of these qualities is experience. Schwartz explained, “No one is born wise; everyone is born with the capacity to be wise.”
- More Here
Barry Schwatz is author of one of my favorite books, Practical Wisdom.
After assuring the audience that one didn’t need to know a “single thing about psychology to understand and disagree” with his talk, he explained that America was “broken.” All the most fundamental institutions of a functioning society—healthcare, education, criminal justice, banking, politics– “do not work the way that they should.” Our carrots and sticks seem to miss the point, or make things worse.
To resolve the problem one need only return to the ancient Greeks. “We need virtue,” he said. “A virtue that Aristotle referred to as ‘practical wisdom.’” It is very simple, really. Practical wisdom is “the will to do the right thing and the skill to figure out what the right thing is. “
“Wise people know when and how to make the exception to every rule,” Schwartz said.
Wisdom, he said, is “moral jazz”. Where a great jazz musician must be a genius of improvisation, so too are those who are wise. Add to that, simple empathy and the ability to choose among virtues or rules when they conflict. There is often a choice between being honest and being kind, and they make the right choice.
The essential common ingredient for all of these qualities is experience. Schwartz explained, “No one is born wise; everyone is born with the capacity to be wise.”
- More Here
Barry Schwatz is author of one of my favorite books, Practical Wisdom.
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