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Practical Wisdom: The Right Way To Do The Right Thing (2010)

by Barry Schwartz(Favorite Author)

3.54 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1594487839 (ISBN13: 9781594487835)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: This is an important book and a very good read. Like muckraking journalists one hundred years ago, Schwartz and Sharpe expose our culture's current failures to promote "practical wisdom" in the people and institutions where it's needed most. Although focusing on law, medicine, education, and finance, their writing and insights make clear we all both need and suffer--literally, suffer--from a lack of practical wisdom in our lives.But my summary makes the book sound darker and (even) more depressing than it is! It is also clear, practical, inspiring, and above all, hopeful.I recommend and urge this book to others.
review 2: This book covers, in a less academic, but very appealing way, the same territory that Stephen Toulmin does in Return to Reason. In its exten... moresive examples of practical wisdom in law, medicine, teaching and financial services, it makes the concepts very accessible.Phronesis =Prudence=practical wisdom. This virtue is rooted in how we know what the right choice or decision is in a particular situation. Wisdom is not a universal, as Plato believed, but lies in the context of particular circumstances. This is not about establishing universal moral rules and following them, but about performing a ‘particular social practice well’.The emphasis is then, not on learning a set of rules and following them perfectly, but on developing character traits such as loyalty, self-control, courage, fairness, generosity, gentleness, friendliness, truthfulness, perseverance, integrity, open-mindedness, thoroughness and kindness. In Aristotle’s view these ‘excellences’ or virtues could not be practiced without practical wisdom which is, therefore, the chief virtue.To be a prudent practitioner of wisdom requires having a clear goal in mind, what Aristotle called telos. One requires both skill and will. “A (good) doctor aims at recommending the right kind of treatment and has the know-how to tailor the treatment to the particular patient with the particular history and in these particular circumstances.” Rules and incentives are not sufficient. At their worst “…rules can kill skill and incentives can kill will.”This requires the ability to deliberate about the choices of action that are available in a given situation and to perceive what is morally relevant. To deliberate is not only to weigh the pros and cons (which may be possible if there is sufficient time), it is also about story telling or narrative. “Our ability to frame situations well and tell good stories is critical to practical moral skills. So, too, is the ability to use analogies and metaphors to draw on our past experiences that were something like the current situation.” Empathy is a critical component of this; the ability to imagine what someone else is thinking and feeling, involves both cognitive and emotional skills. Emotion is also important to practical wisdom as a signal that something important, morally important, is happening. Emotion cannot be removed from decision making (see Damasio or Nussbaum for more on this). It becomes “a process of loving conversation between rules and concrete responses, general conceptions and unique cases, in which the general articulates the particular and is in turn further articulated by it.”“Practical wisdom is a craft and craftsmen are trained by having the right experiences. People learn to how to be brave , said Aristotle, by doing brave things. So, too, with honesty, justice, loyalty, caring, listening, and counseling.”Barriers to the development and nurturance of practical wisdom include ‘rules talk’ or ‘guidelines’, especially when tied to assessment and remuneration. The book contains examples from law, medicine and education. Who knew that some school boards issue to teachers lists of approved ‘praise words’ and that teachers are evaluated on how well and how often they incorporate them in their lessons! Canny outlaws or creative saboteurs are those who work within the system to cover the ‘proficiencies’ demanded by planners and assessors while doing ‘real education’ at the margins. Scripted curricula are ways of preparing students for tests, not educating them for the real world. They are an example of applying the ‘business model’ inappropriately. Similar examples abound in medicine and health care. (it is no coincidence that these changes parallel the rise of the ‘business elite’; the forward seats on aircraft are no longer ‘first class’ but are ‘business class’…just to remind those in economy class of those who are the new, elite). The establishment of rules or requirements or guidelines for the professions is the introduction of corporate thinking or Taylorism. Shifting people’s ability to make decisions and deal with the consequences by invoking rules and requirements results in making them ‘reactive instead of proactive’ in thought, compliant instead of creative and adherent instead of audacious.” Modern thinking in industrial organizations and management assumes that the most efficiency is achieved by a “division of labor between those who conceive and plan and those who actually execute the plans.” Thus, there are specialists in theory and specialists who practice. It is further assumed that assessment is best left to the planners.” Needless to say, such organization requires layers of middle managers to ‘manage’ those who are to execute the plans of the managers. less

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