Barry Schwartz: Our loss of wisdom

Summary

In this thought-provoking speech, the speaker emphasizes the importance of practical wisdom over mere brilliance, using the example of hospital janitors who go beyond their job descriptions to care for patients. He argues that wisdom, a combination of moral will and skill, is essential for making exceptions to rules and improvising in real-world situations. The speaker criticizes over-reliance on rules and incentives, which can undermine moral will and skill, and calls for a re-moralization of work, celebrating moral exemplars, and creating environments that nurture practical wisdom.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Barack Obama's appeal to virtue in his inaugural address was a call for individuals to rise above the financial crisis by putting aside selfish interests and focusing on moral actions.
• 🧹 The story of hospital janitors illustrates how moral will and skill can significantly improve patient care, even when their job descriptions do not explicitly mention human interaction.
• 🤔 The concept of 'practical wisdom' combines moral will and skill, allowing individuals to make exceptions to rules when necessary and to improvise in ambiguous situations.
• 🎷 Wisdom in real-world problems is likened to jazz music, requiring the ability to adapt and create solutions that fit the context and people involved.
• 👶 The lemonade story serves as an example of how over-reliance on rules and procedures can lead to absurd and harmful outcomes, highlighting the need for wisdom beyond rigid systems.
• 📚 The scripted nature of modern education is criticized for promoting mediocrity and stifling the moral skill of teachers by not trusting their judgment.
• 💡 Incentives, while seemingly logical, can sometimes compete with intrinsic motivation, reducing the likelihood of desired actions and potentially undermining moral will.
• 🌳 The story of re-foresting in Indonesia emphasizes the importance of understanding and engaging with local communities for successful and sustainable projects.
• 🏆 Celebrating moral exemplars, like Atticus Finch or Aaron Feuerstein, can inspire individuals and re-moralize work by acknowledging and being proud of moral heroes.
• 🏫 As educators, embodying character and respect is crucial for teaching kids these values, as they learn more from observing role models than from formal instruction.
• 🛠 Practical wisdom is essential for allowing other virtues to be expressed appropriately, and it should be nurtured within individuals and organizations to foster a virtuous cycle of moral actions.

Q & A

What did Barack Obama appeal to in his inaugural address regarding the financial crisis?

Barack Obama appealed to virtue, asking people to put aside childish things and not follow the path of his predecessor or simply trust the country and invest without considering the moral implications.

What is the significance of the hospital janitor job description in the context of the speech?

The hospital janitor job description is significant because it lacks any mention of human interaction, yet the janitors' actions involving kindness, care, and empathy are crucial for improving patient care and hospital operations, highlighting the importance of moral will and skill beyond job descriptions.

What does the speaker mean by 'practical wisdom'?

'Practical wisdom' refers to the combination of moral will and moral skill, as described by Aristotle. It involves knowing when and how to make exceptions to rules, improvising, and using moral skills in the service of the right aims.

How does the speaker relate the actions of the janitors to the concept of wisdom?

The speaker relates the actions of the janitors to wisdom by illustrating how their moral will and skill in caring for patients exemplify practical wisdom. They use their judgment to go beyond their job descriptions to serve others, which is a characteristic of wise individuals.

What is the potential downside of relying too heavily on rules and incentives, as discussed in the speech?

Relying too heavily on rules and incentives can lead to a decline in moral skill and will. Rules can stifle the ability to improvise and learn, while incentives can undermine the intrinsic motivation to do the right thing, leading to a focus on self-interest over ethical considerations.

Why does the speaker argue against teaching ethics as a separate course?

The speaker argues against teaching ethics as a separate course because it implies that ethics is a marginal topic rather than an integral part of all professional activities. It suggests that ethics is not serious and can be compartmentalized, rather than being a core value in all aspects of work.

What examples does the speaker provide to illustrate the negative impact of an over-reliance on rules?

The speaker provides examples such as the lemonade story, where a child was unnecessarily taken from his family due to strict adherence to procedures, and the scripted curricula in modern American education, which lead to mediocrity by not trusting teachers' judgment.

How does the speaker use the story of Aaron Feuerstein to make a point about moral exemplars?

The speaker uses the story of Aaron Feuerstein, who kept all his employees on payroll after a factory fire, to illustrate the importance of moral exemplars. Feuerstein's actions demonstrate that doing the right thing can be more valuable than short-term financial gain, inspiring others to act with moral integrity.

What role does the speaker suggest organizations should play in fostering moral skill and will?

The speaker suggests that organizations should create environments that encourage and nurture both moral skill and moral will. They should ensure that job descriptions do not limit employees to tasks devoid of human interaction and that the organizational culture supports the development of practical wisdom.

How does the speaker connect the concept of practical wisdom to the broader theme of the speech?

The speaker connects practical wisdom to the broader theme by asserting that it allows other virtues to be expressed appropriately. Practical wisdom is essential for making ethical decisions in complex, real-world situations, which is a central message of the speech advocating for a return to moral considerations in professional life.

Outlines

00:00

🧼 The Virtue of Practical Wisdom in Unexpected Places

In his inaugural address, Barack Obama called for virtue amidst the financial crisis, contrasting with the typical advice to invest or shop. He highlighted the moral will and skill of hospital janitors who go beyond their job descriptions to care for patients, exemplifying practical wisdom as defined by Aristotle. These janitors demonstrate the ability to make exceptions to rules and improvise based on context, which is crucial for real-world problem-solving. The speaker emphasizes that wisdom is developed through experience, mentorship, and the freedom to improvise, suggesting that wisdom is essential for effective and humane service.

05:03

🚫 The Downside of Over-Reliance on Rules and Incentives

The speaker argues that an over-reliance on rules and incentives can undermine moral skill and will. Using the example of a father mistakenly giving his son Mike's Hard Lemonade and the subsequent overreaction by authorities, the speaker illustrates how adherence to procedure can lead to absurd and harmful outcomes. They further discuss the impact of scripted curricula in education, which, while intended to prevent disaster, instead assures mediocrity by not trusting teachers' judgment. The reliance on rules and incentives is criticized for creating a downward spiral that erodes moral skill and will, ultimately leading to a war on wisdom.

10:06

🎷 The Importance of Moral Exemplars and Remoralizing Work

The speaker suggests that celebrating moral exemplars and remoralizing work can counteract the negative effects of an overemphasis on rules and incentives. They argue against teaching ethics as a separate course, instead advocating for the acknowledgment and celebration of moral heroes within professions. The speaker shares stories of moral heroes like Aaron Feuerstein, who kept employees on payroll after a factory fire, and Ray Anderson, who transformed his business into an environmentally friendly one. They emphasize the need for organizations to create environments that nurture moral skill and will, and for teachers to embody character and respect for learning.

15:09

🌱 Practical Wisdom as the Keystone of Virtue

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of practical wisdom as the foundation for other virtues like honesty, kindness, and courage. They argue that practical wisdom allows these virtues to be expressed appropriately and effectively. The speaker calls for attention to our actions and the organizational structures that either enable or suppress the development of wisdom. They express hope that people inherently want to do the right thing and that wisdom is accessible if we pay attention to our actions and the contexts in which we work.

20:09

🏆 Encouraging Virtue and Wisdom in Professional and Educational Settings

In the final paragraph, the speaker reiterates the importance of practical wisdom and the need for organizations and educational institutions to support its development. They highlight the role of moral exemplars in inspiring others and the necessity of creating environments that encourage moral skill and will. The speaker also underscores the continuous teaching that occurs through embodiment of character and respect, using the KIPP model as an example of an educational approach that prioritizes character development alongside academic achievement.

Keywords

💡Virtue

Virtue refers to moral excellence or the quality of doing what is right and good. In the video, it is presented as an appeal by Barack Obama to the American public to move beyond self-interest during a financial crisis. The concept is tied to the idea that moral actions, such as those of the hospital janitors who go beyond their job descriptions to care for patients, are crucial for societal improvement.

💡Practical Wisdom

Practical wisdom is the ability to make sound judgments in complex, real-world situations. It is defined by Aristotle as the combination of moral will and moral skill. In the script, it is exemplified by janitors who understand when to deviate from their job duties to better serve others, such as re-washing a floor or not vacuuming a room to allow a family to rest.

💡Moral Will

Moral will is the determination to do what is right, even when it is difficult or goes against one's personal interests. The video discusses how janitors with moral will choose to engage in acts of kindness and care, which are not part of their job descriptions but are essential for the well-being of patients.

💡Moral Skill

Moral skill is the ability to apply moral principles effectively in various situations. The script uses the example of janitors who must discern the right course of action, such as when to ignore a job duty in favor of a more humane response, demonstrating their moral skill.

💡Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand and share the feelings of others. The video highlights the importance of empathy in the workplace, especially in roles like hospital janitors, where empathetic actions can improve patient care and the hospital environment.

💡Rules

Rules are formal instructions or regulations that dictate behavior. The speaker argues that an over-reliance on rules can stifle moral skill and creativity, as seen in the lemonade story where adherence to procedure led to an unnecessary intervention by child welfare services.

💡Incentives

Incentives are rewards or motivations offered to encourage certain behaviors. The video discusses how an excessive focus on incentives can undermine moral will, as people may start to prioritize their own interests over doing what is right, as illustrated by the example of CEOs pursuing short-term gains at the expense of long-term company health.

💡Procedure

Procedure refers to a series of steps followed in a particular order. The script criticizes the adherence to procedure without considering the context or the human impact, as seen in the lemonade story where following procedure led to a child being unnecessarily taken from his family.

💡Brilliance

Brilliance is the quality of being exceptionally intelligent or talented. The video suggests that brilliance alone is not sufficient; it must be accompanied by wisdom to be truly effective and beneficial.

💡Mediocrity

Mediocrity is the state of being average or undistinguished. The speaker argues that an overemphasis on rules and procedures in education, such as scripted curricula, can lead to mediocrity by preventing teachers from exercising their professional judgment and creativity.

💡Responsibility

Responsibility is the state or fact of being accountable or having control over an action. The video contrasts responsibility with incentives, suggesting that when people are motivated by incentives rather than a sense of responsibility, they may not act in the best interests of others or society.

💡Professionalism

Professionalism refers to the qualities expected of a person acting in a professional context, such as competence, discretion, and integrity. The script suggests that an over-reliance on incentives can demoralize professionalism, causing individuals to lose both morale and a sense of morality in their work.

💡Character

Character is the mental and moral qualities unique to an individual. The video emphasizes the importance of character education, particularly teaching respect for oneself, others, and the learning process, as a foundation for personal and professional success.

💡Hope

Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen. The speaker concludes by expressing hope that people want to be virtuous and that practical wisdom can be cultivated by paying attention to our actions and the organizational structures that support or suppress it.

Highlights

Barack Obama's inaugural address emphasized virtue over consumerism and blind trust in the system.

Virtue, an old-fashioned term, is presented as essential in modern society despite seeming out of place.

The story of hospital janitors demonstrates moral will and skill in action, impacting patient care positively.

Practical wisdom, combining moral will and skill, allows for exceptions to rules and improvisation in real-world problem-solving.

Wisdom is developed through experience, mentorship, and the freedom to improvise and learn from failures.

Brilliance without wisdom can be as harmful as ignorance, highlighting the importance of moral judgment.

The lemonade story illustrates the absurdity and harm caused by over-reliance on rules and procedures.

Overuse of rules and incentives can undermine moral skill and will, leading to a downward spiral in professional ethics.

The scripted nature of modern education curricula hinders teacher creativity and fosters mediocrity.

Incentives can sometimes compete with moral responsibility, reducing the likelihood of ethical action.

The need for organizations to create environments that nurture moral skill and will in their employees.

The importance of moral exemplars in inspiring and guiding individuals towards ethical behavior.

The necessity for continuous learning and mentorship in developing practical wisdom and character.

The role of character education in teaching respect and the value of learning, as exemplified by KIPP's approach.

Obama's call for virtue and practical wisdom as a means to allow other virtues to be expressed appropriately.

The potential for hope in people's desire to be virtuous and the role of organizations in facilitating this.

The individual responsibility to pay attention to actions and organizational structures to foster wisdom.

Transcripts

In his inaugural address,

Barack Obama appealed to each of us to give our best

as we try to extricate ourselves from this current financial crisis.

But what did he appeal to?

He did not, happily, follow in the footsteps of his predecessor,

and tell us to just go shopping.

Nor did he tell us, "Trust us. Trust your country.

Invest, invest, invest."

Instead, what he told us was to put aside childish things.

And he appealed to virtue.

Virtue is an old-fashioned word.

It seems a little out of place in a cutting-edge environment like this one.

And besides, some of you might be wondering,

what the hell does it mean?

Let me begin with an example.

This is the job description of a hospital janitor

that is scrolling up on the screen.

And all of the items on it are unremarkable.

They're the things you would expect:

mop the floors, sweep them, empty the trash, restock the cabinets.

It may be a little surprising how many things there are,

but it's not surprising what they are.

But the one thing I want you to notice about them is this:

even though this is a very long list,

there isn't a single thing on it that involves other human beings.

Not one.

The janitor's job could just as well be done in a mortuary as in a hospital.

And yet, when some psychologists interviewed hospital janitors

to get a sense of what they thought their jobs were like,

they encountered Mike,

who told them about how he stopped mopping the floor

because Mr. Jones was out of his bed getting a little exercise,

trying to build up his strength, walking slowly up and down the hall.

And Charlene told them about how she ignored her supervisor's admonition

and didn't vacuum the visitor's lounge

because there were some family members who were there all day, every day

who, at this moment, happened to be taking a nap.

And then there was Luke,

who washed the floor in a comatose young man's room twice

because the man's father, who had been keeping a vigil for six months,

didn't see Luke do it the first time,

and his father was angry.

And behavior like this from janitors, from technicians, from nurses

and, if we're lucky now and then, from doctors,

doesn't just make people feel a little better,

it actually improves the quality of patient care

and enables hospitals to run well.

Now, not all janitors are like this, of course.

But the ones who are think that these sorts of human interactions

involving kindness, care and empathy

are an essential part of the job.

And yet their job description contains not one word about other human beings.

These janitors have the moral will to do right by other people.

And beyond this, they have the moral skill to figure out what "doing right" means.

"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,

as the janitors knew when to ignore the job duties in the service of other objectives.

A wise person knows how to improvise,

as Luke did when he re-washed the floor.

Real-world problems are often ambiguous and ill-defined

and the context is always changing.

A wise person is like a jazz musician --

using the notes on the page, but dancing around them,

inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and the people at hand.

A wise person knows how to use these moral skills

in the service of the right aims.

To serve other people, not to manipulate other people.

And finally, perhaps most important,

a wise person is made, not born.

Wisdom depends on experience,

and not just any experience.

You need the time to get to know the people that you're serving.

You need permission to be allowed to improvise,

try new things, occasionally to fail and to learn from your failures.

And you need to be mentored by wise teachers.

When you ask the janitors who behaved like the ones I described

how hard it is to learn to do their job,

they tell you that it takes lots of experience.

And they don't mean it takes lots of experience to learn how to mop floors and empty trash cans.

It takes lots of experience to learn how to care for people.

At TED, brilliance is rampant.

It's scary.

The good news is you don't need to be brilliant to be wise.

The bad news is that without wisdom,

brilliance isn't enough.

It's as likely to get you and other people into trouble as anything else.

(Applause)

Now, I hope that we all know this.

There's a sense in which it's obvious,

and yet, let me tell you a little story.

It's a story about lemonade.

A dad and his seven-year-old son were watching a Detroit Tigers game at the ballpark.

His son asked him for some lemonade

and Dad went to the concession stand to buy it.

All they had was Mike's Hard Lemonade,

which was five percent alcohol.

Dad, being an academic, had no idea that Mike's Hard Lemonade contained alcohol.

So he brought it back.

And the kid was drinking it, and a security guard spotted it,

and called the police, who called an ambulance

that rushed to the ballpark, whisked the kid to the hospital.

The emergency room ascertained that the kid had no alcohol in his blood.

And they were ready to let the kid go.

But not so fast.

The Wayne County Child Welfare Protection Agency said no.

And the child was sent to a foster home for three days.

At that point, can the child go home?

Well, a judge said yes, but only if the dad leaves the house and checks into a motel.

After two weeks, I'm happy to report,

the family was reunited.

But the welfare workers and the ambulance people

and the judge all said the same thing:

"We hate to do it but we have to follow procedure."

How do things like this happen?

Scott Simon, who told this story on NPR,

said, "Rules and procedures may be dumb,

but they spare you from thinking."

And, to be fair, rules are often imposed

because previous officials have been lax

and they let a child go back to an abusive household.

Fair enough.

When things go wrong, as of course they do,

we reach for two tools to try to fix them.

One tool we reach for is rules.

Better ones, more of them.

The second tool we reach for is incentives.

Better ones, more of them.

What else, after all, is there?

We can certainly see this in response to the current financial crisis.

Regulate, regulate, regulate.

Fix the incentives, fix the incentives, fix the incentives ...

The truth is that neither rules nor incentives

are enough to do the job.

How could you even write a rule that got the janitors to do what they did?

And would you pay them a bonus for being empathic?

It's preposterous on its face.

And what happens is that as we turn increasingly to rules,

rules and incentives may make things better in the short run,

but they create a downward spiral

that makes them worse in the long run.

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.

Let me just give you a few examples,

first of rules and the war on moral skill.

The lemonade story is one.

Second, no doubt more familiar to you,

is the nature of modern American education:

scripted, lock-step curricula.

Here's an example from Chicago kindergarten.

Reading and enjoying literature

and words that begin with 'B.'

"The Bath:" Assemble students on a rug

and give students a warning about the dangers of hot water.

Say 75 items in this script to teach a 25-page picture book.

All over Chicago in every kindergarten class in the city,

every teacher is saying the same words in the same way on the same day.

We know why these scripts are there.

We don't trust the judgment of teachers enough

to let them loose on their own.

Scripts like these are insurance policies against disaster.

And they prevent disaster.

But what they assure in its place is mediocrity.

(Applause)

Don't get me wrong. We need rules!

Jazz musicians need some notes --

most of them need some notes on the page.

We need more rules for the bankers, God knows.

But too many rules prevent accomplished jazz musicians

from improvising.

And as a result, they lose their gifts,

or worse, they stop playing altogether.

Now, how about incentives?

They seem cleverer.

If you have one reason for doing something

and I give you a second reason for doing the same thing,

it seems only logical that two reasons are better than one

and you're more likely to do it.

Right?

Well, not always.

Sometimes two reasons to do the same thing seem to compete with one another

instead of complimenting,

and they make people less likely to do it.

I'll just give you one example because time is racing.

In Switzerland, back about 15 years ago,

they were trying to decide where to site nuclear waste dumps.

There was going to be a national referendum.

Some psychologists went around and polled citizens who were very well informed.

And they said, "Would you be willing to have a nuclear waste dump in your community?"

Astonishingly, 50 percent of the citizens said yes.

They knew it was dangerous.

They thought it would reduce their property values.

But it had to go somewhere

and they had responsibilities as citizens.

The psychologists asked other people a slightly different question.

They said, "If we paid you six weeks' salary every year

would you be willing to have a nuclear waste dump in your community?"

Two reasons. It's my responsibility and I'm getting paid.

Instead of 50 percent saying yes,

25 percent said yes.

What happens is that

the second this introduction of incentive gets us

so that instead of asking, "What is my responsibility?"

all we ask is, "What serves my interests?"

When incentives don't work,

when CEOs ignore the long-term health of their companies

in pursuit of short-term gains that will lead to massive bonuses,

the response is always the same.

Get smarter incentives.

The truth is that there are no incentives that you can devise

that are ever going to be smart enough.

Any incentive system can be subverted by bad will.

We need incentives. People have to make a living.

But excessive reliance on incentives

demoralizes professional activity

in two senses of that word.

It causes people who engage in that activity to lose morale

and it causes the activity itself to lose morality.

Barack Obama said, before he was inaugurated,

"We must ask not just 'Is it profitable?' but 'Is it right?'"

And when professions are demoralized,

everyone in them becomes dependent on -- addicted to -- incentives

and they stop asking "Is it right?"

We see this in medicine.

("Although it's nothing serious, let's keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't turn into a major lawsuit.")

And we certainly see it in the world of business.

("In order to remain competitive in today's marketplace, I'm afraid we're going to have to replace you with a sleezeball.")

("I sold my soul for about a tenth of what the damn things are going for now.")

It is obvious that this is not the way people want to do their work.

So what can we do?

A few sources of hope:

we ought to try to re-moralize work.

One way not to do it: teach more ethics courses.

(Applause)

There is no better way to show people that you're not serious

than to tie up everything you have to say about ethics

into a little package with a bow and consign it to the margins as an ethics course.

What to do instead?

One: Celebrate moral exemplars.

Acknowledge, when you go to law school,

that a little voice is whispering in your ear

about Atticus Finch.

No 10-year-old goes to law school to do mergers and acquisitions.

People are inspired by moral heroes.

But we learn that with sophistication

comes the understanding that you can't acknowledge that you have moral heroes.

Well, acknowledge them.

Be proud that you have them.

Celebrate them.

And demand that the people who teach you acknowledge them and celebrate them too.

That's one thing we can do.

I don't know how many of you remember this:

another moral hero, 15 years ago, Aaron Feuerstein,

who was the head of Malden Mills in Massachusetts --

they made Polartec --

The factory burned down.

3,000 employees. He kept every one of them on the payroll.

Why? Because it would have been a disaster for them

and for the community if he had let them go.

"Maybe on paper our company is worth less to Wall Street,

but I can tell you it's worth more. We're doing fine."

Just at this TED we heard talks from several moral heroes.

Two were particularly inspiring to me.

One was Ray Anderson, who turned --

(Applause)

-- turned, you know, a part of the evil empire

into a zero-footprint, or almost zero-footprint business.

Why? Because it was the right thing to do.

And a bonus he's discovering is

he's actually going to make even more money.

His employees are inspired by the effort.

Why? Because there happy to be doing something that's the right thing to do.

Yesterday we heard Willie Smits talk about re-foresting in Indonesia.

(Applause)

In many ways this is the perfect example.

Because it took the will to do the right thing.

God knows it took a huge amount of technical skill.

I'm boggled at how much he and his associates needed to know

in order to plot this out.

But most important to make it work --

and he emphasized this --

is that it took knowing the people in the communities.

Unless the people you're working with are behind you,

this will fail.

And there isn't a formula to tell you how to get the people behind you,

because different people in different communities

organize their lives in different ways.

So there's a lot here at TED, and at other places, to celebrate.

And you don't have to be a mega-hero.

There are ordinary heroes.

Ordinary heroes like the janitors who are worth celebrating too.

As practitioners each and every one of us should strive

to be ordinary, if not extraordinary heroes.

As heads of organizations,

we should strive to create environments

that encourage and nurture both moral skill and moral will.

Even the wisest and most well-meaning people

will give up if they have to swim against the current

in the organizations in which they work.

If you run an organization, you should be sure

that none of the jobs -- none of the jobs --

have job descriptions like the job descriptions of the janitors.

Because the truth is that

any work that you do that involves interaction with other people

is moral work.

And any moral work depends upon practical wisdom.

And, perhaps most important,

as teachers, we should strive to be the ordinary heroes,

the moral exemplars, to the people we mentor.

And there are a few things that we have to remember as teachers.

One is that we are always teaching.

Someone is always watching.

The camera is always on.

Bill Gates talked about the importance of education

and, in particular, the model that KIPP was providing:

"Knowledge is power."

And he talked about a lot of the wonderful things

that KIPP is doing

to take inner-city kids and turn them in the direction of college.

I want to focus on one particular thing KIPP is doing

that Bill didn't mention.

That is that they have come to the realization

that the single most important thing kids need to learn

is character.

They need to learn to respect themselves.

They need to learn to respect their schoolmates.

They need to learn to respect their teachers.

And, most important, they need to learn to respect learning.

That's the principle objective.

If you do that, the rest is just pretty much a coast downhill.

And the teachers: the way you teach these things to the kids

is by having the teachers and all the other staff embody it every minute of every day.

Obama appealed to virtue.

And I think he was right.

And the virtue I think we need above all others is practical wisdom,

because it's what allows other virtues -- honesty, kindness, courage and so on --

to be displayed at the right time and in the right way.

He also appealed to hope.

Right again.

I think there is reason for hope.

I think people want to be allowed to be virtuous.

In many ways, it's what TED is all about.

Wanting to do the right thing

in the right way

for the right reasons.

This kind of wisdom is within the grasp of each and every one of us

if only we start paying attention.

Paying attention to what we do,

to how we do it,

and, perhaps most importantly,

to the structure of the organizations within which we work,

so as to make sure that it enables us and other people to develop wisdom

rather than having it suppressed.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: You have to go and stand out here a sec.

Barry Schwartz: Thank you very much.

(Applause)