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The article/interview claims that we can cultivate and test for virtue (creativity and wisdom), and that our current tests used to funnel intelligence into high

The article/interview claims that we can cultivate and test for virtue (creativity and wisdom), and that our current tests used to funnel intelligence into higher education and intelligence work isn't currently accounting for it. I'm not sure where in the article the claim is made that it cannot be improved upon.

nostrademons 9y ago
"Improved upon" assumes something that is constant on the level of long-term worldview, not something that may change situationally. You wouldn't usually say that your choice of what to have for dinner or which sweater to buy can be "improved upon", but many of the individual choices we make that lead to the world we currently live in are on that level. I guess the article does mention engaging the ethical reasoning centers of our brain and training them to realize that it's an ethical problem at all, but my argument here is that there's a reason most citizens in developed countries don't think about the moral implications of, say, buying an iPhone made in a sweatshop in China that uses rare-earth minerals that pollute the environment, and that's because the number of choices we face on a daily basis and the moral complexity of all the consequences of these would paralyze us into inaction if we did - in which case, those people who don't bother to think about it would dominate consumption.
- jrochkind1 9y ago
  It changes situationally, but not everyone acts identically in the same situation, so it must vary personally too, no?
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    I would assume so, yes. Additionally, the same action might be perceived in a different moral light by different people. Just look at how the same events are reported in Breitbart vs. CNN vs. Pravda vs. Al-Jazeera (and read the comments on them) for an example of this. The complexity of moral education is that you have to balance situation vs. individual vs. audience, and it's very difficult to do this in a consistent way. Propose any concrete curriculum, and it's almost guaranteed that some people will scream about how you're imposing your values on the rest of society, and at least one kid will take the exact opposite lesson from what you intended and do something you found morally abhorrent.
- neogodless 9y ago
  I see what you're saying about the virtues being "different based on the situation and/or other variables." However, that doesn't mean you can't "improve upon" the ability to make virtuous choices. In your dinner example, if someone has only math and finance education, they might simply say that fast food is the best choice for dinner. But if they get some nutrition education, suddenly they're wondering if maybe something healthier might be worth the financial trade off. So you can absolutely improve decision making with education. That example didn't include virtues, though it could include making decisions for others (i.e. your family) that improve their lives. Of course, wisdom about nutrition is a more direct example of something you might not teach or test for, but in this case, it is useful. Sure, there are situations where the choices are just between two fast foods, and neither choice will seem wise, but again, if only taught the individual math rather than creativity, they might not realize that there's also a fresh produce market (i.e. a third choice!) hiding around the corner.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    Sure, and this type of moral education is actually done in schools. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and we had a unit on water conservation; a unit on energy efficiency; a play we wrote about rainforest destruction, endangered species, and global warming; recurrent reminders to recycle; programs for anti-drug and anti-smoking initiatives; sex ed; and pervasive lessons on respecting each other and authority. I haven't had any connection to the school system since 2000, but from what I've heard, kids these days also get lessons on nutrition and on diversity & inclusion. But here are three major complexities: a.) A good portion of America believes that this sort of moral education is indoctrination. You're seeing the rise of Christian homeschooling as a reaction to it, for example, which proponents of these values find just as morally abhorrent. b.) There's an opportunity cost to everything you teach. So while diversity & inclusion has gotten a lot more classroom time of late, the importance of free speech seems to have fallen by the wayside. While we hear a lot about global warming or fossil-fuel exhaustion, there's little about groundwater pollution, rare-earth mining, or labor rights. c.) Once people get into the real world, they discover markets. Markets reward people who supply what others do not, which means that if you have a cohort of idealistic young conformists, the one defector can make lots of money simply by breaking the consensus. In many ways, this is exactly what moralists complain of, and what led off this article: people who break common ideas of virtue are getting very rich off of it. And yet we don't want to get rid of markets, because they supply the things that we want but somebody else would rather not supply us with.

nostrademons 9y ago

"Improved upon" assumes something that is constant on the level of long-term worldview, not something that may change situationally. You wouldn't usually say that your choice of what to have for dinner or which sweater to buy can be "improved upon", but many of the individual choices we make that lead to the world we currently live in are on that level. I guess the article does mention engaging the ethical reasoning centers of our brain and training them to realize that it's an ethical problem at all, but my argument here is that there's a reason most citizens in developed countries don't think about the moral implications of, say, buying an iPhone made in a sweatshop in China that uses rare-earth minerals that pollute the environment, and that's because the number of choices we face on a daily basis and the moral complexity of all the consequences of these would paralyze us into inaction if we did - in which case, those people who don't bother to think about it would dominate consumption.

jrochkind1 9y ago
It changes situationally, but not everyone acts identically in the same situation, so it must vary personally too, no?
- nostrademons 9y ago
  I would assume so, yes. Additionally, the same action might be perceived in a different moral light by different people. Just look at how the same events are reported in Breitbart vs. CNN vs. Pravda vs. Al-Jazeera (and read the comments on them) for an example of this. The complexity of moral education is that you have to balance situation vs. individual vs. audience, and it's very difficult to do this in a consistent way. Propose any concrete curriculum, and it's almost guaranteed that some people will scream about how you're imposing your values on the rest of society, and at least one kid will take the exact opposite lesson from what you intended and do something you found morally abhorrent.
neogodless 9y ago
I see what you're saying about the virtues being "different based on the situation and/or other variables." However, that doesn't mean you can't "improve upon" the ability to make virtuous choices. In your dinner example, if someone has only math and finance education, they might simply say that fast food is the best choice for dinner. But if they get some nutrition education, suddenly they're wondering if maybe something healthier might be worth the financial trade off. So you can absolutely improve decision making with education. That example didn't include virtues, though it could include making decisions for others (i.e. your family) that improve their lives. Of course, wisdom about nutrition is a more direct example of something you might not teach or test for, but in this case, it is useful. Sure, there are situations where the choices are just between two fast foods, and neither choice will seem wise, but again, if only taught the individual math rather than creativity, they might not realize that there's also a fresh produce market (i.e. a third choice!) hiding around the corner.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Sure, and this type of moral education is actually done in schools. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and we had a unit on water conservation; a unit on energy efficiency; a play we wrote about rainforest destruction, endangered species, and global warming; recurrent reminders to recycle; programs for anti-drug and anti-smoking initiatives; sex ed; and pervasive lessons on respecting each other and authority. I haven't had any connection to the school system since 2000, but from what I've heard, kids these days also get lessons on nutrition and on diversity & inclusion. But here are three major complexities: a.) A good portion of America believes that this sort of moral education is indoctrination. You're seeing the rise of Christian homeschooling as a reaction to it, for example, which proponents of these values find just as morally abhorrent. b.) There's an opportunity cost to everything you teach. So while diversity & inclusion has gotten a lot more classroom time of late, the importance of free speech seems to have fallen by the wayside. While we hear a lot about global warming or fossil-fuel exhaustion, there's little about groundwater pollution, rare-earth mining, or labor rights. c.) Once people get into the real world, they discover markets. Markets reward people who supply what others do not, which means that if you have a cohort of idealistic young conformists, the one defector can make lots of money simply by breaking the consensus. In many ways, this is exactly what moralists complain of, and what led off this article: people who break common ideas of virtue are getting very rich off of it. And yet we don't want to get rid of markets, because they supply the things that we want but somebody else would rather not supply us with.