Max H. Bazerman - Better, Not Perfect

In 1993, when I was on the faculty of Northwestern University, I gave a talk at a conference on behavioral science and the environment at the Allen Center, a rather nondescript modern building in Evanston, Illinois, marked by its expansive views of Lake Michigan. In passing, I mentioned that I had become a vegetarian. Someone in the audience made a comment in which he referred to himself as a vegetarian, too, but one who ate fish. I responded, That would make you a fisheterian. I knew the word pescatarian, but I was making a very bad attempt at humor. After the talk, the cognitive psychologist Doug Medin approached me. Before I tell you what he said, its important to know that Doug is a friend of mine whos very mild-mannered, nice, and brilliant. Max, Doug said, your combative comment to the guy who ate fish was really stupid. Stupid stood out, coming from Doug, but it was accurate. Doug went on to argue, convincingly, that allowing the fish eater to claim vegetarianism would make him less likely to become a red-meat eater and even, in time, more likely to stop eating fish. His point was that each positive step a person takes should be encouraged, rather than highlighted for what it lacks.

I knew Doug was right. With my snarky remark, I had been trying to get the commenter to be more ethicala poor strategy from lots of perspectives. First, I was trying to impose my goals on another person by suggesting that his ethical behavior was in need of improvement. I was also applying my own value systemparticularly, the notion that fish eating is morally wrongto encourage him to question his fish consumption. In addition, I was failing to think like a social scientist about what would actually lead another person, one I didnt know well, to change his behavior. I am confident that my effort flopped and that Doug understood the psychology of changing the commenters ethical behavior better than I did.

Over the last few decades, I havent given up on trying to be more ethical and insightful myself or on encouraging others to be more ethical, but I think Im going about it in a more effective way. Writing this book has helped me think through how to be more effective at meeting these goals. If Im successful, this book will make you bettermore successful, more ethical, and more effective at creating value for others. Well explore the latest theories and research findings on what we now know works when it comes to helping people, including ourselves, reach what I call their maximum sustainable level of goodness.

Of course, to do so, well need to reach a shared definition of ethics. Ill depart from utilitarian philosophy, and most philosophies, in that I wont judge the ethicality of your current behavior. Rather, lets assume that all of us would like to create more value for ourselves and othersand that we have more capacity than we realize to be better. I wont expect you to share my values or priorities on issues that have ethical dimensions, such as vegetarianism. I dont want to define a narrow set of societal rules for good behavior. I certainly wont guide you toward adhering to a specific religion. I wont urge you to always tell the truth or to reveal all of your information to your negotiation opponent.

Instead, well use the word ethics similarly to how utilitarian philosophers use the term: to achieve the greatest good by creating as much value as possible for all sentient beings in the world. By creating more value, you will be better and do better. Our goal will be to identify concrete steps to access our capacity to create more value and reach what Ill refer to as our maximum sustainable level of goodness. That is, the goal wont be to push you toward perfection, but to encourage you on the path of goodness at a level that you can sustain and enjoy for the rest of your life.

WHAT LIES AHEAD

In the first five chapters, well explore a new mindset for improving moral decision making that underlies my prescriptive approach (more on that later) to improving ethical behavior. will provide prompts for noticing opportunities to create value that too often escape our attention.

The next four chapters will focus on applying these ideas to areas where most of us can improve: equality/tribalism, reducing waste, using our time better, and making more effective charitable decisions. The final section of the book will offer additional guidance on how to leverage your potential by influencing others to make decisions for the greater good. We will close with some thoughts on how we can achieve our maximum sustainable goodness.

Ethical challenges are not new, but new and different ones are arising every day. Bernard Madoffs theft of billions of dollars reminds us that we are more vulnerable to crooks than ever beforeand perhaps more willfully ignorant of their crimes. Terrorism raises tough decisions about what processes are appropriate to get the information thats needed to keep people safe. As companies dream up ever-increasing ways to make our lives easier, our environmental footprint grows deeper and more damaging by the day. In the United States, citizens are challenged on how to act when national leadership no longer shows a preference for truth. In many countries, finding collective value has disappeared as a national goal. We urgently need to find and follow a North Star that creates more ethicality and more value, and that supports us in simply doing better.