The Harvard Business Review on The Ethical Mind

I came across this really inspiring interview between psychologist Howard Gardner and Bronwyn Fryer in the March 2007 issue of The Harvard Business Review while looking for something else. That's how most of my really interesting online finds occur -- a serendipidious sidestep while researching something related.

Gardner and Fryer start out by talking about ethics in the business context but, by the end of the interview, Gardner is making it clear that ethics is an all-or-nothing proposition. You can't be a little bit ethical; nor can you attempt to compartmentalize ethical behaviour in some parts of your life on the grounds that it's too risky or too inconvenient to take action. ("As the seventeenth-century French playwright Jean-Baptiste Molière declared, 'It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible but for what we do not do,'" Gardner notes.)

The interview wraps up with this call to action from Gardner:

"You need to decide which side you’re on. There are so many ways in which the world could spiral either up toward health and a decent life for all or down into poverty, disease, ecological disaster—even nuclear warfare. If you are in a position to help tip the balance, you owe it to yourself, to your progeny, to your employees, to your community, and to the planet to do the right thing."

Comments

[karrie]

Howard Gardner is an interesting guy. I have a few of his books about intelligence.

Btw,there is a Thinking Blogger award & button for you on my blog--scroll back to archives from last week. You can pass it along to five others who write in a way that makes you think.

[karrie]

Oops. It's way back there. Here is the link:

http://karriew.wordpress.com/2007/02/25/oh-the-awards/