reestablishing the commons for the common good

Reestablishing the Commons for the Common Good

Howard Gardner

© 2013 by Howard Gardner

HOWARDGARDNER, a Fellow ofthe American Academy since 1995,is the John H. and Elisabeth A.Hobbs Professor of Cognition andEducation at the Harvard Gradu-ate School of Education, where heis also the Senior Director of Har-vard Project Zero. His many publi-cations include Truth, Beauty, andGoodness Reframed: Educating for theVirtues in the Age of Truthiness andTwitter (2012), Leading Minds (1995),and Frames of Mind: The Theory ofMultiple Intelligences (1983).

As high-end primates, human beings in earliereras presumably had some notion of “commongood.” Parents made sacri½ces for their children, andlater in life, the favor was often returned. Siblingsand more distant relatives cared for one anotherand, perhaps, for a broader group of persons.

Precisely when such solidarity transcended bloodrelationships will likely never be known. The workof anthropologist Robin Dunbar hints at the scopeof early conceptions of the common good.1 Dunbarargues that individuals can comfortably maintainrelationships with up to 150 people: the maximumnumber of individuals in a clan or small tribe whosee each other regularly, and whose behavior–friendly and helpful, or hostile and injurious–canbe remembered for purposes of cooperation orretaliation.

I have coined the phrase neighborly morality todenote this conception of the common good.2Here, individuals handle a manageable cognitiveload, with some capacity to solve existing problemsand to anticipate new ones. It is logical for suchindividuals to help one another from time to time,to work together toward goals that would bedif½cult or impossible to achieve independently.

199

Abstract: For individuals living in a small community, the notion of “common good” seems almost nat-ural; it can be thought of simply as neighborly morality. However, in a complex modern society, it is farmore challenging for individuals to de½ne and agree upon what is the common good. Nonetheless, twocontemporary roles would bene½t from embracing a broader sense of the good: 1) membership in a pro-fession; and 2) membership in a polity. Drawing on ½ndings from the GoodWork Project, I describe howthe common good can become a guiding value in the professional and civic realms; discuss threats to suchguiding values; and suggest some ways to promote the common good in contemporary American society.

Indeed, this is what happens in small set-tlements.

Consider the Ten Commandments andthe Golden Rule. Traditional injunctionsmake sense when dealing with a manage-able number of acquaintances. Honor yourparents and desist from lying, stealingfrom, and disrespecting your neighbors.Moreover, sanctions that follow the break-ing of these codes–whether imposed bythe community or by God–reinforce thedesirability of the neighborly form of thecommon good.

We lack thorough histories of suchsmall human groups. Communities largeand literate enough to leave writtenrecords have dwarfed the type of neigh-borhood that Dunbar describes. Yet theneed to recognize and address the com-mon good scarcely disappears with theemergence of larger settlements, villages,cities, and states.

Is there evidence of voluntarism inworking for the common good in theselarger communities? The slaves of Egyptbuilt pyramids, burial tombs, and mas-sive granaries that served others, but wehave no reason to believe that theiractions were voluntary. So, too, serfs andpeasants in ancient and medieval timesmined for precious metals and harvestedcrops. Indeed, much of the political theorydeveloped in Europe in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries was an attemptto determine whether such apparentlyselfless actions were compulsory; orwhether people joined together voluntarilyto serve what they believed was a broadergood than that extended to kith and kin.

With the growth of states and theemergence of nations, centralized pow-ers came to the fore. Inhabitants of thegreat empires–Chinese, Indian, Ottoman,Holy Roman–did not merely elect to paytaxes and tribute or to bear arms in a mili-tary expedition. At minimum they were

compelled to do so; but some citizensalso understood why it might be in theirinterest to cooperate in such large-scaleventures. Whether literally religious, likeChristianity or Islam, or better describedas spiritual, like Confucianism or Shinto,the belief systems of these civilizationsprovided rationales for pro-social behav-ior, which motivated some inhabitants.Both formal and informal educationalsystems also represented efforts to instillsuch cooperative behaviors in the nextgeneration.

My concern is not with authoritarianor totalitarian societies–the pharaohs ofEgypt, the Qin emperors in China–orthe fascist and communist dictators ofthe twentieth century. Rather, the chal-lenge is to understand the speci½c condi-tions under which a voluntary conscien-tiousness emerges in nonauthoritariansocieties. In such cases, individuals whohave the freedom to behave sel½shlyinstead elect to devote signi½cant effortto bene½t the larger polity. In contrast toneighborly morality, I term this variety ofservice the ethics of roles. The two principalroles with regard to serving the commongood are those of the worker and of thecitizen.

The ethical citizen views the polity asan extension of himself and his interests.Not only does the ethical citizen identifywith his city, region, or state; but con-cerned with the welfare of that entity, heis willing to contribute to it, whether ornot he and his kin bene½t directly.

Such powerful civic associations areillustrated by the Athenians’ long-hon-ored concern with the welfare of theircity. In ½fth century Athens, young adultmales swore the following oath:

We will never bring disgrace on this our citythrough an act of dishonesty or cowardice.

We will ½ght for the ideals and Sacred Thingsof the city both alone and with many.

200

Reestab-lishing theCommons

for theCommon

Good

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

We will revere and obey the city’s laws, andwill do our best to incite a like reverenceand respect in those above us who areprone to annul them or set them at naught.

We will strive increasingly to quicken thepublic’s sense of civic duty.

Thus, in all these ways we will transmit thiscity, not only not less, but greater and morebeautiful that it was transmitted to us.3

In Western civilization since the heightof Athens, there have been both periodsof active ethical citizenship and periodswhen the role of the ethical citizen wasquiescent or even absent. Some periodsof ethical citizenship coincided with reli-gious agendas: for example, participationin the Crusades on behalf of Christen-dom seems to have been voluntary on thepart of many. Other periods coincidedwith political revolution–be it the Amer-ican Revolution, the French Revolution,the founding of the modern Chinesestate, or the Russian Revolution of theearly twentieth century. It is also possibleto evaluate and rank polities in terms ofcivic concern for the common good.Contemporary Scandinavian and otherNorthern European countries, for exam-ple, stand out for embracing a voluntaryform of the common good. East Asiancountries also demonstrate a concernwith the common good, though it may besomewhat less volitional on the part oftheir citizens.

The role of the ethical worker comple-ments that of the ethical citizen, and itshistory is no less complex. Early instancesof the ethical worker include the emer-gence of trades and guilds in the late Mid-dle Ages. Certainly, trades and guilds ex-hibited sel½sh and secretive behaviors.But within the guilds there was also anawareness of which actions and whichideals served the good of the buddingprofession and, perhaps, of the broadersociety as well. The guild’s concern for

the greater good can be discerned in theemergence of labor unions in Europe andthe Americas.

The ethical worker emerged with thedevelopment of the professions, some-times called the learned professions. Paral-leling the oath of the Athenian citizen isthe Hippocratic Oath, which is generallyconsidered the ½rst example of a profes-sional oath and is still commonly takentoday in one or another form. By takingthe oath, the physician pledges to cometo the aid of those who are sick, to do sowithout regard to the patient’s ability topay, to avoid any form of bribery, to passon the trade to the next generation, andto respect the patient’s privacy. While theoath may protect the special status of theprofession, it also represents a pioneeringeffort to stipulate what it means to servethe larger community–the common good.

In the early 1960s Dædalus devoted anentire issue to the American professions.The professions were then at their heights:“Everywhere in American life, the profes-sions are triumphant,” remarked editorKenneth Lynn.4 Professionals had pres-tige, status, and adequate compensation.They were viewed as individuals, andbecause they had mastered their material,were current in knowledge, and had beenendorsed by the masters of their chosenguild, they were granted considerableautonomy. They were perceived as author-ities, capable of rendering disinterestedjudgments in the face of complexity anduncertainty. Soon additional sectors ofsociety, from business to journalism,emulated the “gold standards” of medi-cine, law, and the professoriate with regardto credentialing, service, and objectivity.

The concept of “disinterestedness” iscrucial to the roles of both the professionaland the citizen.5 Of course, the ethicalworker and citizen does not ignore his orher own needs. Nevertheless, society ben-e½ts when those wielding power and

201

HowardGardner

142 (2) Spring 2013

influence–in professional of½ces, in thevoting booth, in the public sphere–areable to transcend narrow self-interest.Professionals follow the precepts of theguild just as citizens follow their oath ofcitizenship. Thus, their understanding ofpersonal gain is viewed within the con-text of the greater good over an extendedperiod of time.

So why is a professor of cognition andeducation writing an essay on the ethicalprofessional and the ethical citizen? Igrew up in the 1950s and 1960s, when theprofessional in America was highlyesteemed. Certainly, the professions werenot without flaws: women and minori-ties were often barred from entering aprofession, never mind ascending to thetop ranks (a challenge that still remainsin many sectors). Yet without romanti-cizing the era, I feel reasonably con½dentthat American professionals in the mid-twentieth century cultivated a sense ofthe common good, and this frameworkguided them in their work. And flawedthough they were, American citizens andpublic servants of the era viewed them-selves as servants of this same commongood, not servants of just their immedi-ate needs, neighbors, or constituencies.

By 1995, my colleagues in psychology,Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and WilliamDamon, and I sensed that the era of thehonored professional was already on thewane. We could see that law was becom-ing overwhelmingly corporate; that thepractice of medicine was taking place inlarge, non-professionally-led health main-tenance organizations, often for-pro½t;and that print and broadcast journalismhad dif½culty covering important newsin a thorough and dispassionate way. (Wewere then unaware of the parallel pres-sures put on ½nancial professionals–auditors, bankers, credit raters–but theevents of the past decade have amply

documented the dif½culty of maintain-ing professionalism in the ½nancial sec-tor in the face of rapid change and theopportunity to make enormous sums ofmoney when willing to cut corners.)

To understand and address this move-ment away from the honored professional,we founded the GoodWork Project.Active today, the GoodWork Project isconcerned with what it means to be aprofessional in the modern world. Weexplore the question of how professionscan survive when conditions are chang-ing rapidly, when our sense of time andspace has been radically altered by tech-nology, when markets are very powerful,and when few if any counterforces canmediate or moderate the forces of themarket. To answer these questions, weinterviewed more than 1,200 profession-als drawn from nine different realms ofwork, and we launched a series of siblingand offspring research projects. Our½ndings are detailed in a dozen booksand numerous articles, and described atour website www.thegoodproject.org.6

Why has the role of the professional inAmerica been undermined in such ashort period of time? Indeed, the percep-tion of the American professional has soshifted that many young persons assumethat a professional is simply a business-man who does not make as much moneyas a successful entrepreneur, trader, orconsultant.

A multitude of factors has contributedto the diminution of the role of the pro-fessional, and more speci½cally, of itsethical core. Among the contributing fac-tors is the opening of the profession togroups that were hitherto not welcome.Without question, this access has on bal-ance been a healthy and needed trend,echoing George Bernard Shaw’s renownedquip that “all professions are conspira-cies against the laity.” However, thisdemocratization has also often entailed

202


for theCommon

Good


an anti-elite, anti-expert sentiment. Aheightened belief in the genius of themarket, which is believed to be the opti-mal regulator of society and its institu-tions, has also lessened the value placedon professionals. In Ronald Reagan’sUnited States and Margaret Thatcher’sUnited Kingdom, there was little sympa-thy for professionals who sought protec-tion of their status: “There is no such thingas society,” Thatcher famously declared.And with cost-free access to copioustechnical information, the digital revolu-tion has sometimes engendered unrealis-tic expectations of expertise on the partof professionals and placed unexpectedpressures on those who, in earlier times,had been assumed to “know best.”

Though it has largely been a hiddentrend, the special status of the profes-sional has been gradually worn down bythe tide of market and value changes.One single event did not suddenly under-mine the professional; rather, between1970 and 2010, the once-esteemed profes-sional came to be viewed with increasedskepticism and distrust. And while dim-inution of status does not necessarilyentail a diminution of ethical ½ber, it ismore dif½cult for the professional toserve the common good when society nolonger elevates and empowers him.

The relatively positive milieu of themid-twentieth century has been replacedby an atmosphere of fear and greedamong many citizens and professionals:fear on the part of those who feel thatthey are losing their place in society; andgreed on the part of those whose lives aredriven by a desire for ever more posses-sions and ever-advancing status all toooften yoked to the level of compensation,even in the not-for-pro½t sector. Concernfor the common good cannot survive inthe face of these two virulent forces.More worrisome, fear and greed combineto form a vicious cycle that is extremely

dif½cult to reverse on an individual orsocietal level.

GoodWork Project researchers are oftenasked how we know that professionalsare less ethical than they once were.Admittedly, we could not prove this claimto a skeptic, though much research withyoung people suggests an attenuation ofthe ethical muscle. But regardless of itsstanding in relation to the past, the ethi-cal level of professions inarguably needsnurturing today.

And what of the role of the ethical citi-zen? The research of political scientistRobert Putnam documents the decline ofcivic communitarian groups, the weak-ening of civic trust in increasingly diversesocieties, and the growing politicizationof religion; not one of these developmentsfavors the common good.7 Voting per-centages may fluctuate, but public trustin governmental institutions and prac-tices has dropped steadily, if not precipi-tously. Considerable evidence from thedigital world documents both the igno-rance of citizens about basic constitu-tional and historical concepts and theincreased tendency of citizens to associ-ate principally with those who share theirpolitical views. The hope that the Inter-net would usher in an era of cosmopoli-tanism, empathy, and/or generosity hasnot–or at least not yet–been realized.

Given the dystopic trends in contem-porary American society, it is necessaryto search broadly for encouraging mod-els. It is poignant that many formerlytotalitarian states–in Eastern Europeand East Asia, for example–look to theUnited States for models of how to devel-op an independent legal system, a politi-cal process, a faculty governance, or ajournalistic ethos, at a time when theethics of the professions in the UnitedStates are being intensely challenged.Revealingly, a preliminary ½nding from

203

HowardGardner

142 (2) Spring 2013

one of our studies suggests that immi-grant youth are no more trusting of insti-tutions and public ½gures than are Amer-ican-born youth; however, the immigrantyouth at least trust the processes in areassuch as law or investigative reporting.

Scandinavia (particularly Sweden andDenmark) and certain other pockets ofWestern Europe are probably the strongestbastions of ethical citizens and ethicalprofessionals today. For many years, Ihave visited Reggio Emilia, a small city innortheastern Italy, celebrated for itsremarkable preschool educational insti-tutions. Not coincidentally, Reggio Emiliais in the region of Italy that, according toRobert Putnam, founded institutions ofcivic democracy as early as the twelfthcentury!8 Not only have I observed an ex-emplary concern for the common goodin Reggio Emilia, but this Italian commu-nity represents a model learning organi-zation, with leaders working tirelessly tolearn from other sites as well as fromtheir own experiments and mistakes.9

However, it is not clear either in Scan-dinavia or in other parts of Europe thatthe ethics of roles can endure in the faceof these three factors: 1) pressures of themarket and of globalization; 2) readyaccess of the general population to knowl-edge and expertise, both genuine andfeigned, ushered in by the digital revolu-tion; and 3) the large-scale movement ofimmigrants into once homogeneous so-cieties. From what I have observed, coun-tries like Sweden and the Netherlandsmake great efforts to integrate immi-grants. Yet, particularly at times of ½nan-cial pressure, it is easy to scapegoat immi-grants and thereby narrow the scope ofwhat is “common.”

Speci½cally, in Scandinavia and parts ofNorthern and Western Europe, the com-mon good is seen as the good of thewhole nation. But if a signi½cant part ofthe population is not integrated, and

therefore is not accepted as part of thenation, then notions of the commongood become truncated. The same issuesarise in East Asia, where minorities inChina or Japan have not been easily inte-grated into the majority culture. Coun-tries with greater diversity and estab-lished histories of integrating ethnicminorities may have an easier time em-bracing an ecumenical notion of thecommon good. Recent social and politi-cal movements in the United States,Brazil, and India, however, demonstratethe constant pressures placed on ethni-cally diverse societies to limit the scopeof what constitutes “we.”

In addition to documenting threats tothe common good, the GoodWork Proj-ect research group has sought to identifyfeatures that are most likely to engender abroader sense of community among pro-fessionals and citizens. Many of the pro-fessionals with whom we spoke citedearly religious education or experiencesas a principal contributor to their ethicalsense. Though many participants iden-ti½ed their religious upbringing as a majorinfluence on their adult understanding ofethics, most no longer actively practicedtheir birth religion, nor did God or theirreligion otherwise come up in our lengthyinterviews. In fact, for only one interviewgroup did religion continue to loom large:namely, subjects who had been nominatedas “good businessmen or businesswom-en.” Note, however, that our interviewstook place largely on the two coasts of theUnited States; if our sample had beenmore heavily skewed toward the South orthe Midwest, religion might have been dis-cussed more frequently.

Beyond the familial and religiousmilieus of early life, three factors proveinfluential in developing an ethical sense:

Vertical Support. Mentorship and otherforms of institutional support are crucial

204


for theCommon

Good


to the individual’s development of anethical stance. An admired mentor pos-sessing a strong ethical compass may be ahugely influential model to a developingcitizen. The same holds true of the work-place milieu: do leaders and supervisorsvalue a high ethical standard, and not justas a talking point?

Less predictably, our research subjectsfrequently mentioned individuals whoserved as negative role models–we calledthese anti-mentors or tor-mentors. Our sub-jects often explained: “He (or she) epito-mized what I did NOT want to be.” Ofcourse, many ethically compromisedworkers lacked mentors, or had mentorswho were themselves ethically de½cient.Distance from a mentor with a negativeinfluence may be required for a profes-sional to realize that his or her mentor isnot worthy of emulation.

Horizontal Support. In the contemporaryUnited States, particularly with the riseof social media, the role of peer groupshas taken on greater importance. Withmentors scarce and senior individualsoften moving from one institution toanother, the influence of age-mates canbe enormous. And as the GoodWorkProject has documented, many youngprofessionals perceive their peers to beextremely ambitious, often willing to cutcorners to gain advancement. (We werenot in a position to determine whetherthese perceptions were accurate.) Oursubjects explained to us that they werenot willing to hurt their odds of profes-sional success by being more ethical thantheir peers. A low or inconsistent set ofstandards among peers–whether gen-uine or perceived–can confound one’sethical orientation.

Peer influence need not be destructive.It is certainly possible for peers to bandtogether, to attempt to better the ethicalmilieu of their organization, or even tostart a new institution that embodies

high ethical standards. The remarkableyoung entrepreneurs who have recentlyfounded organizations in education, citi-zenship, justice, and the environment havemuch to teach us about the pursuit of thecommon good. Alas, as John Gardner–the embodiment of the good citizen in anearlier era–has pointed out, their effortscan pale in the event that necessary andfar-reaching legislation is not enacted.

Periodic Wake-up Calls. Even when at-tempting to serve the common good,workers and citizens can regress, actingeither foolishly or sel½shly. At suchtimes, an unexpected event can be salu-tary. The event is often a negative one–malpractice on the part of an individualor group that threatens the viability ofthe overall enterprise. Such a wake-upcall occurred at The New York Times earlyin the twenty-½rst century. Within ashort time frame, two key events unfold-ed: 1) the Times discovered that staffreporter Jayson Blair had plagiarized andfabricated news stories; and 2) the na-tional news division published the unsub-stantiated claim that Saddam Husseinwas hiding weapons of mass destructionin Iraq. Such wake-up calls may compelindividuals to revisit the core values oftheir profession and redetermine howbest to embody them. The wake-up call istherefore ultimately a positive event thatcan help workers entrenched in a profes-sion appreciate how their role can servethe broader good. That was the case in1971, when The New York Times and TheWashington Post risked judicial proceed-ings and ½nancial ruin by publishing thePentagon Papers.

These forces are not limited to the pro-fessional realm, but operate in civic life aswell. Young people are heavily influencedby the models of parents and teachers;indeed, the best predictor of interest incivics is growing up in a home wheremembers of the family regularly discuss

205

HowardGardner

142 (2) Spring 2013

and debate the news. Peers exert potentinfluence as well: it matters whether achild’s peers discuss participants andevents in the political and economicworlds, or if they restrict their discourseto gossip about celebrities. And onceagain, the occurrence of a major event–carnage at an elementary or secondaryschool, the bombing of the Twin Towers–can serve as a civic wake-up call.

We began the GoodWork Project withthe aim of understanding current stancestoward the common good: what is hap-pening with respect to various profes-sions and, more generally, to the world ofwork; and what is happening with respectto citizenship, among youth in particular.As the data accumulated, and as wereflected on their implications, we electedto devote our efforts toward the promo-tion of good work and good citizenship.

Under the leadership of William Damon,and with the collaboration of the Com-mittee of Concerned Journalists, theGoodWork Project designed a travelingcurriculum for journalists. It is based on aseries of off-site workshops where mem-bers of a journalistic organization canmeet to discuss vexed ethical issues, suchas how to minimize bias, how to verifysources while competing with blogs in a24/7 news cycle, and how to undertakeinvestigative journalism at a time ofintense market pressures and diminishedresources. Carried out in almost two hun-dred newsrooms and involving approxi-mately three thousand journalists, thetraveling curriculum has been well re-ceived, and a follow-up study has indicat-ed that the workshops have had lastingvalue.

With the leadership of Lynn Barendsenand Wendy Fischman, we have designedthe GoodWork Toolkit, which consists ofdilemmas that have been reported bysubjects in our GoodWork study. Orga-

nized around a series of lessons, the par-ticipants tackle questions such as: Whatwork is admired, and why? Can work beboth engaging and ethical? Is it appropri-ate to cut corners when your colleaguesengage in such compromises? The Toolkitcan be used in any educational setting,but is most effective when, like the travel-ing curriculum in journalism, all thestakeholders participate actively.

Several of us have taught courses cen-tered on the GoodWork themes. We havealso designed “reflection sessions” forundergraduates. In these voluntary ses-sions, students reflect on their goals andvalues; their current use of time and howconsistent this is with their large-scaleconcerns; and the manner in which theydeal with ethical issues that have arisenin their own lives, or ones that have beenreported in the media.

Inspiring individuals to focus on thecommon good is particularly challengingin a social climate of fear, greed, anduncertainty. Indeed, in one study thatincluded a pre- and post-test, adolescentsexposed to GoodWork issues actuallybecame more resistant to working for thecommon good.10 It is unclear whetherthey became less generous as a means ofresolving cognitive dissonance; or whetherchallenging the common good is, at leastfor some, a necessary step en route to amore capacious perspective. We are underno illusion that mere discussion of theseissues is the same as working on them inour daily lives; many of us “talk” a bettergame than we “walk.” Yet the results ofour various interventions have suf½cient-ly encouraged us to continue their prac-tice and development. As a result of theseand other activities, I have become con-vinced of the power of a “common space”or a “commons.” Originally, of course, thisphrase in English referred to publicgrounds to which herdsmen broughttheir cattle and on which farmers planted

206


for theCommon

Good


their crops. If the community did notshow restraint, the commons was soonexhausted–hence the famous “tragedyof the commons.” Conversely, if individ-uals at the commons worked together toserve the long-term needs of the largercommunity, broader bene½ts resulted.The same principles extend beyond aphysical commons to the institutions andpolities that link professionals and citizenstoday.11

Within my own institution I have feltthe pronounced need for such an intellec-tual common space. At an institution aslarge, well known, and closely monitoredas Harvard, ethical issues arise constant-ly. Some issues are large, some small, andmost are gossiped about. Yet Harvardleadership is extremely reluctant to dis-cuss these issues publicly, let alone reflecton them and promulgate lessons learned.Meanwhile, bloggers speak very franklyabout “silenced” issues, but they do soanonymously, leaving no way of deter-mining which claims have warrant andwhich do not. I hope that it may be possi-ble to create a “commons” where mem-bers of the Harvard community can freelydiscuss consequential ethical issues, with-out fear of reprisal, and thereby perhapsdiscover new procedures that could con-tribute to the common good in other con-texts.

I believe in voluntarism. I admire insti-tutions and practices that begin modestlyand yet prove so compelling that they “goviral” and take on a life of their own. Theeducational system in Reggio Emiliaexempli½es this phenomenon. The edu-cators are far from proselytizers; indeed,they do not seek out partners or searchfor multichanneled megaphones. Andyet since the time of Maria Montessori acentury ago, no educational effort withyoung persons has had as much positiveinfluence throughout the world as thatput forth by the schools of Reggio.

However, boutique examples are dif-½cult to replicate, and in the meantime,valuable opportunities may be lost. Ac-cordingly, I endorse the promulgation ofregulations and the implementation oflaws that counter sel½shness and self-centeredness, and that “nudge” peopleand institutions toward the commongood. Recent Anglo-American historyreveals a sharp turn away from concernwith the common good. It is high time torestore a better balance. I therefore sup-port those processes and institutions thatexplicitly embrace the common good astheir mandate, as well as measures thatcan indicate whether they have con-tributed to greater common good. Just aswar is too important to be left to the gen-erals, the common good is too precious tobe left to the vagaries of human biology,historical trends, or the appearance of theoccasional saint. Conscientious effortsby ethical workers and ethical citizens toserve the common good deserve all thesupport that society and government canmuster.

207

HowardGardner

142 (2) Spring 2013

208


for theCommon

Good


endnotes1 Robin Dunbar, How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolu-

tionary Quirks (London: Faber and Faber, 2010).2 Howard Gardner, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the Age of

Truthiness and Twitter (New York: Basic Books, 2012).3 The Essentia Book of Knowledge, “The Athenian Oath,” http://www.essentia.com/book/

history/athenian.htm.4 Kenneth Lynn, Introduction to “The Professions,” a special issue of Dædalus 92 (4) (Fall

1963): 649.5 Howard Gardner, “In Defense of Disinterestedness in the Digital Era,” in Transforming Citizens:

Youth, New Media, and Political Participation, ed. D. S. Allen and J. Light (in preparation).6 See also Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and William Damon, Good Work: When

Excellence and Ethics Meet (New York: Basic Books, 2001); Howard Gardner, ed., Good Work:Theory and Practice, http://www.thegoodproject.org/the-goods/books/goodwork-theory-and-practice/

7 See, for example, Robert Putnam, ed., Democracy in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Con-temporary Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

8 Robert Putnam, Robert Lenardi, and Raffaella Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradi-tions in Modern Italy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

9 Project Zero and Reggio Children, Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and GroupLearners (Reggio Emilia, Italy: Reggio Children Pubns, 2001).

10 Scott Seider, “‘Bad Things Could Happen’: How Fear Impedes the Development of SocialResponsibility in Privileged Adolescents,” Journal of Adolescent Research 23 (6) (November 2008):647–666.

11 Elinor Ostrom, “Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex EconomicSystems,” Nobel Prize Lecture, December 8, 2009, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ostrom_lecture.pdf.

reestablishing the commons for the common good

Documents