Doing the Right Thing Can Help You Succeed
Book outlines how to put practical wisdom into action
24 January 2011
Doing the right thing can help individuals and institutions succeed. But knowing what that right thing is, is not easy.
In "Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing," authors Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharp explain that it’s possible to develop the good judgment that helps people make the right decisions. They say it takes experience, failure and determination.
Practical wisdom
The concept of practical wisdom comes from Aristotle. Schwartz explains that the ancient Greek philosopher made two arguments about behavior.
Authors Barry Shwartz and Kenneth Sharp believe the world will become a better place if people use their judgment to do the right thing."One is that there is no set of ethical rules or principles that tells us the right thing to do in every situation," he says. "The world is too complicated, too varied, and you need to use your judgment, which is what Aristotle meant by wisdom. And the practical part is that it’s the sort of judgment that we need every day, in interacting with our friends, with our children, with our patients or our students. So it is not some high, abstract ideal. It’s very concrete and very much about how you treat other people on a day-to-day basis."
Societies and institutions have created rules and regulations, procedures and performance incentives to guide and encourage people to do the right thing, but Schwartz says blindly following those standards does not cultivate wisdom.
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