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Practical wisdom

By Steven Schwartz - posted Wednesday, 5 January 2022


We often hear about a national "skills" shortage: too few plumbers, computer scientists, or doctors. We must increase the skill level of our working population so that we can compete in the "knowledge economy." (Is there somewhere an economy based on ignorance?) To alleviate skill shortages, we have significantly increased expenditure on schools and expanded universities. These initiatives are well-intentioned, but it is not sufficient to train people in a narrow set of skills. Real-world problems are rarely cut and dry; they are often ambiguous and ill-defined. It is impossible to have a rule for every contingency. A wise person knows how and when to improvise and when to make an exception to the rules.

Wisdom is not something you can learn from a book or a lecture; it takes experience, reflection, and self-knowledge. Still, even brilliant people will appear hopelessly stupid if rigid work rules keep them from using their judgement. We need workers who can discern the right thing to do in different situations, and we need workplaces that encourage employees to use their judgement when exceptional circumstances arise.

A psychologist called Barry Schwartz (a great speaker and extremely smart, but no relation) says that workers require "practical wisdom." He illustrates this idea with an example. It involves a group of hospital janitors whose job descriptions list their duties as mopping floors, cleaning up, dumping the rubbish, and the like. Sounds reasonable; these are the tasks janitors are employed to do. Notice, however, that not once is human interaction mentioned. Their job description could just as easily apply to robots.

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But janitors are not robots. They have frequent contact with the sick and the dying and their visitors. To do their jobs well, they must go beyond standard work protocols. For example, clinic work rules required janitors to vacuum the waiting room carpet every afternoon. However, one afternoon, a janitor noticed that a husband, who had been waiting anxiously all night for news of his sick wife, had fallen asleep. Rather than switch on the vacuum cleaner and wake the husband, the janitor decided to skip this part of his routine and come back later.

Here's another example. A janitor assigned to mop the floor of a hospital corridor stopped because a patient was out of her bed, getting a little exercise, trying to build up her strength, walking slowly down the hall.

These acts may seem minor, but kindness, care, and empathy make patients feel better and help hospitals achieve their aims. It is worth repeating; janitors are not robots skilled at cleaning up. They have the practical wisdom to vary work routines to accommodate exceptional circumstances. They have what Aristotle called moral will (wanting to do the right thing) and moral skill (knowing how and when to do it).

The emergency operators who kept asking the boy lost in the blue mountains for the cross street may have had the moral will to do the right thing, but they lacked moral skill, or, more accurately, their rigid work rules did not allow them to use the moral skill they possessed.

Neither moral will nor moral skill has much to do with education. Janitors with minimal schooling can have both, while highly educated people may have neither.

Consider, for example, the demoralising scandals surrounding the politicians and health bureaucrats who blithely ignored the severe Covid-19 restrictions they imposed on others. These elites enjoyed parties, travel, and opportunities for intimacy while ordinary people were forced to stay home, often alone, for weeks or even months.

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Curiously, no one seems surprised that these scandals involved people who attended prestigious universities. Similarly, the financiers who precipitate financial crises with their shabby schemes are often graduates of leading business schools. They have the practical skills needed to do their jobs, but many are deficient in moral will and moral skill.

Moral will and moral skill are as important as specific job-related knowledge. As the great Victorian-era author and artist John Ruskin said - "the highest reward for people's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it."

How can universities help students gain moral will and moral skill? Universities are not churches; they are not in the business of saving souls. But, universities can still help students learn about ethics by creating an ethical community that provides a solid ethical role model for students. A university that minimises conflicts of interest, supports open inquiry and encourages constructive dissent can profoundly affect students' moral development.

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This article was first published on Wiser Every Day.



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About the Author

Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz AM is the former vice-chancellor of Macquarie University (Sydney), Murdoch University (Perth), and Brunel University (London).

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