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Our loss of wisdom

‘”Practical wisdom,” Aristotle told us, “is the combination of moral will and moral skill.”A wise person knows when and how to make the exception to every rule’

In this TED Talk, recorded shortly after the banking crisis, Professor Schwartz reminds us that it is wisdom, more than mere knowledge, that is important for living well. Rules are fine and certainly have their place, yet whilst they seek to insure against disaster, they also assure mediocrity. He gives two examples one where rigidly sticking to the rules led to a family being unnecessarily stressed, and another where some hospital janitors by using their wisdom supported the patients.

“Moral skill is chipped away by an over-reliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations. And moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing. And without intending it, by appealing to rules and incentives, we are engaging in a war on wisdom.”