Practical wisdom is the most important thing in the world

[Aimless]

Dear reader,

you're interested in individual success, in national prestige, in happiness, in incentives, in rules and regulations, in growing and shrinking government, in crime and punishment, in the erosion of mens rea, in judicial activism, in bankers, in teaching, in medicine, in marijuana, in morals and ethics, in various important aspects of leading a life as a human in today's world.

I give you what I think is the most important lectures you'll see this week:

[GGT]

I watched the first lecture. Very good.

Oh, lookie there, he mentioned the financial industry! "We need to rein in the bankers......they'll find cracks in any set of rules....."

<followed by virtuous incentives that benefit more than servicing just the self>

Would that make Ayn Rand's head explode?

[GGT]

hmm, several views but so far no posts besides mine? Maybe you hit a nerve, minx? I liked the suggestion that perhaps psychology or behaviorists should trump economists. Will + Skill (When he said that, I visualized Wills + Kill, as word play to describe so many money profiteers )

As coincidence, after that, I read a report that traders test more psychopathic than psychopaths, because they're drawn to destructive competition and brush away risk. Making money is their best guide, and their money is the most important thing in the world. If their neighbor has the same car, they'd just as soon beat it with a baseball bat, to make their own car appear better.

[Aimless]

"We need to rein in the bankers......they'll find cracks in any set of rules....."

What the hell GGT, you just ruined a great lecture with your selective quoting.

Here's a more representative sample from that particular portion of the lecture:

And Ken and I certainly know that you need to reign in the bankers. If there is a lesson to be learned from the financial collapse it is that. But what we believe, and what we argue in the book, is that there is no set of rules, no matter how detailed, no matter how specific, no matter how carefully monitored and enforced, there is no set of rules that will get us what we need. Why? Because bankers are smart people. And, like water, they will find cracks in any set of rules. You design a set of rules that will make sure that the particular reason why the financial system almost collapsed can't happen again. It is naive beyond description to think that having blocked this source of financial collapse, you have blocked all possible sources of financial collapse. So it's just a question of waiting for the next one and then marveling at how we could have been so stupid as not to protect ourselves against that.

What we desperately need, beyond, or along with, better rules and reasonably smart incentives, is we need virtue, we need character, we need people who want to do the right thing. And in particular, the virtue that we need most of all is the virtue that Aristotle called practical wisdom. Practical wisdom is the moral will to do the right thing and the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is.

[GGT]

Sorry. His comparisons b/w bankers and teachers and physicians was compelling. Presumably because those professions launch from different expectations that we've set for them, and what they've set for themselves.


I did wonder who Ken was.....



Anyway, it was a good lecture. It seemed to me that care-givers, protectors and educators (nurses, physicians, teachers, lawyers) were already the group most receptive to his talk, because for the most part those are the professions that begin with a sense of community service, or helping others. Beyond that, he was appealing to others in the business community, that don't traditionally say to themselves, "I'm going to start a company, because I want to help people".

I'm not really sure what his lecture meant to politicians or legislators. Most of them probably start out with a "virtuous" moral goal to help others, but get caught up in some vortex of twisted incentives, where they begin to feel it's best to raise money in order to get elected or re-elected, than serving their constituents. Or they get confused about which parts of their souls they have to sell, in order to follow their conscience. That's not something relegated to politicians, btw.

[Lebanese Dragon]

What the hell GGT, you just ruined a great lecture with your selective quoting.

I think she quoted him quite in context, while that wasn't the focus of his lecture it was indeed a part of it. The context being we need to reign in bankers, but no rule set is capable of doing it. Exactly what he said. Then he goes on to say this implies the need to restore virtue in humanity yadda yadda yadda. It was interesting, and I wish it would happen as well.

[GGT]

The contemporary reader may not equate "practical wisdom" with Aristotle's observations and terminology. Schwartz said teaching more ethics courses isn't the answer, and I'd agree. But the reality is that plenty of very smart and intelligent university students may not have a lot of "practical wisdom", or even logic.

It's fairly amazing that some of our universities now include classes in Logic, or try to incorporate Logic and Ethics into course agenda, for future medical professionals.

I've seen it first-hand over decades. First, as a student, then as a nurse-provider, then as a nurse-manager, then as internal and outsourced (insurance) Utilization Review or Quality Control. (Not to mention as a consumer or family member.)

There's not a whole lot of "practical wisdom" or rationality used in the real world. Not in the real world of medicine and healthcare, or the real world of education. Especially not in financial services. Not in the United States of America, anyway. "Virtuous behavior" and "incentivizing moral behavior" for the Greater Good sounds too much like SSSocialism. And we just can't have any of that....unless we can make money off it, see.