Det første jeg vil gøre, er at sige tak til jer alle sammen. Den anden ting jeg vil gøre er at introducere jer for min medforfatter og kære ven og medlærer. Ken og jeg har arbejdet sammen i mere end 40 år. Det er Ken Sharpe derovre.
The first thing I want to do is say thank you to all of you. The second thing I want to do is introduce my co-author and dear friend and co-teacher. Ken and I have been working together for almost 40 years. That's Ken Sharpe over there.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Så der er blandt mange mennesker -- bestemt mig selv og de fleste mennesker jeg taler med -- en slags kollektiv utilfredshed med måden hvorpå tingene fungerer, med måden hvorpå institutionerne fungerer. Vores børns lærere lader til at svigte dem. Vores læger ved ikke hvem søren vi er, og de har ikke tid nok til os. Vi kan helt sikkert ikke stole på bankfolkene, og vi kan bestemt ikke stole på børsmæglerne. De kørte næsten hele det økonomiske system i sænk. Og selv mens vi gør vores eget arbejde, alt for ofte, finder vi os selv i valget mellem at gøre det vi tror er den rigtige ting og at gøre den forventede ting, eller den påkrævede ting, eller den indbringende ting. Så overalt hvor vi kigger, mere eller mindre over det hele, bekymrer vi os over at de mennesker vi er afhængige af ikke virkelig har vores bedste interesse for øje. Eller hvis de har vores interesser for øje, bekymrer vi os over at de ikke kender os godt nok til at regne ud hvad de skal gøre for at tillade os at sikre vores interesser. De forstår os ikke. De har ikke tiden til at lære os at kende.
So there is among many people -- certainly me and most of the people I talk to -- a kind of collective dissatisfaction with the way things are working, with the way our institutions run. Our kids' teachers seem to be failing them. Our doctors don't know who the hell we are, and they don't have enough time for us. We certainly can't trust the bankers, and we certainly can't trust the brokers. They almost brought the entire financial system down. And even as we do our own work, all too often, we find ourselves having to choose between doing what we think is the right thing and doing the expected thing, or the required thing, or the profitable thing. So everywhere we look, pretty much across the board, we worry that the people we depend on don't really have our interests at heart. Or if they do have our interests at heart, we worry that they don't know us well enough to figure out what they need to do in order to allow us to secure those interests. They don't understand us. They don't have the time to get to know us.
Der er to slags svar som vi kommer med til denne form for generelle utilfredshed. Hvis tingene ikke går godt er det første svar: lad os lave flere regler, lad os lave et sæt detaljerede procedurer for at sikre, at mennesker vil gøre det rigtige. Giv lærere manuskripter de kan følge i klasseværelset, så selvom de ikke ved hvad de laver og er lige glade med vores børns velfærd, så længe de følger manuskripterne, vil vores børn blive uddannet. Giv dommere en liste over obligatoriske domme til at give kriminelle, så man ikke behøver at være afhængige af dommere der bruger deres dømmekraft. I stedet er det eneste de behøver at gøre er at finde i deres liste hvilken dom der passer til den slags forbrydelse. Indfør grænser på hvad udlånsfirmaer må tage i rente og på hvilke ting de kan kræve i gebyr. Flere og flere regler til at beskytte os mod en række ligeglade, følelseskolde institutioner som vi skal beskæftige os med.
There are two kinds of responses that we make to this sort of general dissatisfaction. If things aren't going right, the first response is: let's make more rules, let's set up a set of detailed procedures to make sure that people will do the right thing. Give teachers scripts to follow in the classroom, so even if they don't know what they're doing and don't care about the welfare of our kids, as long as they follow the scripts, our kids will get educated. Give judges a list of mandatory sentences to impose for crimes, so that you don't need to rely on judges using their judgment. Instead, all they have to do is look up on the list what kind of sentence goes with what kind of crime. Impose limits on what credit card companies can charge in interest and on what they can charge in fees. More and more rules to protect us against an indifferent, uncaring set of institutions we have to deal with.
Eller -- eller måske -- i tillæg til regler, lad os se om vi kan finde på nogle virkelig smarte tilskyndelser, så selvom de mennesker vi beskæftiger os med ikke i særdeleshed vil have vores interesser for øje, det er i deres interesse at holde vores interesser for øje -- de magiske tilskyndelser der vil få mennesker til at gøre det rigtige selvom det kommer af ren egoisme. Så vi tilbyder lærere en bonus hvis de børn de underviser opnår beståede karakterer på disse store tests der bliver brugt til at evaluere kvaliteten af vores uddannelsessystem.
Or -- or maybe and -- in addition to rules, let's see if we can come up with some really clever incentives so that, even if the people we deal with don't particularly want to serve our interests, it is in their interest to serve our interest -- the magic incentives that will get people to do the right thing even out of pure selfishness. So we offer teachers bonuses if the kids they teach score passing grades on these big test scores that are used to evaluate the quality of school systems.
Regler og tilskyndelser -- "stok" og "gulerod." Vi vedtog en stak regler til at regulere den finansielle industri som svar på det seneste kollaps. Der er Dodd-Frank Act, der er den nye Consumer Financial Protection Agency der midlertidigt bliver ledt gennem bagdøren af Elizabeth Warren. Måske vil disse regler faktisk forbedre måden hvorpå disse finansielle service virksomheder opfører sig på. Vi får at se. Derudover, kæmper vi med at finde på en måde at skabe tilskyndelser for mennesker i den finansielle service industri der vil få dem til at være mere interesserede i at have langtids interesser for øje selv deres egne virksomheders, i stedet for at sikre sig kortsigtede profitter. Så hvis vi finder de rigtige tilskyndelser, vil de gøre det rigtige -- som jeg sagde -- egoistisk, og hvis vi kommer med de rette regler og tilskyndelser, vil de ikke køre os ud over afgrunden. Og Ken [Sharpe] og jeg ved bestemt at man skal holde bankfolk i en stram snor. Hvis der er noget vi har lært af den finansielle kollaps er det det.
Rules and incentives -- "sticks" and "carrots." We passed a bunch of rules to regulate the financial industry in response to the recent collapse. There's the Dodd-Frank Act, there's the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency that is temporarily being headed through the backdoor by Elizabeth Warren. Maybe these rules will actually improve the way these financial services companies behave. We'll see. In addition, we are struggling to find some way to create incentives for people in the financial services industry that will have them more interested in serving the long-term interests even of their own companies, rather than securing short-term profits. So if we find just the right incentives, they'll do the right thing -- as I said -- selfishly, and if we come up with the right rules and regulations, they won't drive us all over a cliff. And Ken [Sharpe] and I certainly know that you need to reign in the bankers. If there is a lesson to be learned from the financial collapse it is that.
Men det vi mener, og det vi argumenterer for i bogen, er at der ikke er et sæt regler, uanset hvor detaljeret, og uanset hvor specifikt, uanset hvor omhyggeligt det bliver overvåget og håndhævet, er der ikke et sæt regler der vil give os det vi har brug for. Hvorfor? Fordi bankfolk er smarte mennesker. Og, ligesom vand, vil de finde sprækker i ethvert regelsæt. Man udvikler et sæt regler der vil sikre at den bestemte grund til at det finansielle systems "næsten-kollaps" ikke kan ske igen. Det er naivt ud over enhver beskrivelse at tro, at have blokeret denne kilde til finansielt kollaps, så har man blokeret alle mulige kilder til et finansielt kollaps. Så det er kun et spørgsmål om at vente på den næste og så blive forbavset over hvordan vi kunne have været så dumme at vi ikke har beskyttet os mod det.
But what we believe, and what we argue in the book, is that there is no set of rules, no matter how detailed, no matter how specific, no matter how carefully monitored and enforced, there is no set of rules that will get us what we need. Why? Because bankers are smart people. And, like water, they will find cracks in any set of rules. You design a set of rules that will make sure that the particular reason why the financial system "almost-collapse" can't happen again. It is naive beyond description to think that having blocked this source of financial collapse, you have blocked all possible sources of financial collapse. So it's just a question of waiting for the next one and then marveling at how we could have been so stupid as not to protect ourselves against that.
Det vi desperat har brug for, ud over, eller sammen med, bedre regler og forholdsvis smarte tilskyndelser, er at vi har brug for dyd. Vi har brug for karakter. Vi har brug for mennesker der har lyst til at gøre det rigtige. Og især, dyden som vi frem for alt har brug for er dyden som Aristoteles kaldte "praktisk visdom." Praktisk visdom er den moralske vilje til at gøre det rigtige den moralske evne til at regne ud hvad der er det rigtige. Så Aristoteles var meget interesseret i at se hvordan fagmændene rundt om ham arbejdede. Og han var imponeret over hvordan de ville improvisere nye løsninger på nye problemer -- problemer som de ikke havde forudset. Så et eksempel er at han se disse murere der arbejder på øen Lesbos, og de skal udmåle runde søjler. Jamen hvis man tænker over det, er det i virkeligheden ret svært at udmåle runde søjler ved hjælp af en lineal. Så hvad gør de? De finder på en ny løsning på problemet. De lavede en lineal der bøjer, det vi i dag ville kalde et målebånd -- en fleksibel lineal, en lineal der kan bøjes. Og Aristoteles sagde, "Hah, de værdsatte at man nogen gange for at designe rundede søjler, skal man være i stand til at bøje linealen." Og Aristoteles sagde tit når han beskæftigede sig med andre mennesker, skal vi være i stand til at bøje reglerne.
What we desperately need, beyond, or along with, better rules and reasonably smart incentives, is we need virtue. We need character. We need people who want to do the right thing. And in particular, the virtue that we need most of all is the virtue that Aristotle called "practical wisdom." Practical wisdom is the moral will to do the right thing and the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is. So Aristotle was very interested in watching how the craftsmen around him worked. And he was impressed at how they would improvise novel solutions to novel problems -- problems that they hadn't anticipated. So one example is he sees these stonemasons working on the Isle of Lesbos, and they need to measure out round columns. Well if you think about it, it's really hard to measure out round columns using a ruler. So what do they do? They fashion a novel solution to the problem. They created a ruler that bends, what we would call these days a tape measure -- a flexible rule, a rule that bends. And Aristotle said, "Hah, they appreciated that sometimes to design rounded columns, you need to bend the rule." And Aristotle said often in dealing with other people, we need to bend the rules.
At beskæftige sig med andre mennesker kræver en form for fleksibilitet som intet sæt regler kan omfatte. Vise mennesker ved hvornår og hvordan man bøjer reglerne. Vi mennesker ved hvordan de skal improvisere. Måden hvorpå min medforfatter, Ken, og jeg talte om det, er de lidt ligesom jazzmusikere. Reglerne er ligesom noderne på siden, og det får en i gang, men så danser man rundt om noderne på siden, og finder på den helt rigtige kombination for dette bestemte øjeblik med dette bestemte set af medspillere. Så for Aristoteles, den slags regelbøjning, undtagelse til regelsøgning og improvisation som man ser hos dygtige fagfolk er præcis det man har brug for for at være en dygtig, moralsk fagmand. Og i interaktionerne med mennesker, næsten hele tiden, er denne form for fleksibilitet påkrævet. En vis person ved hvornår man bøjer reglerne. En vis person ved hvornår man skal improvisere. Og vigtigst af alt, en vis person laver denne improvisation og regelbøjning på grund af de rigtige mål. Hvis man er en regel bøjer og en improvisator mest for at hjælpe en selv, får man en nådesløs manipulation af andre mennesker. Så det betyder noget at man udfører denne vise praksis for at hjælpe andre og ikke for at hjælpe en selv. Så viljen til at gøre det rigtige er lige så vigtig som den moralske evne til improvisation og at finde undtagelsen. Sammen udgør de praktisk visdom, som Aristoteles mente var den vigtigste dyd.
Dealing with other people demands a kind of flexibility that no set of rules can encompass. Wise people know when and how to bend the rules. Wise people know how to improvise. The way my co-author , Ken, and I talk about it, they are kind of like jazz musicians. The rules are like the notes on the page, and that gets you started, but then you dance around the notes on the page, coming up with just the right combination for this particular moment with this particular set of fellow players. So for Aristotle, the kind of rule-bending, rule exception-finding and improvisation that you see in skilled craftsmen is exactly what you need to be a skilled moral craftsman. And in interactions with people, almost all the time, it is this kind of flexibility that is required. A wise person knows when to bend the rules. A wise person knows when to improvise. And most important, a wise person does this improvising and rule-bending in the service of the right aims. If you are a rule-bender and an improviser mostly to serve yourself, what you get is ruthless manipulation of other people. So it matters that you do this wise practice in the service of others and not in the service of yourself. And so the will to do the right thing is just as important as the moral skill of improvisation and exception-finding. Together they comprise practical wisdom, which Aristotle thought was the master virtue.
Så jeg vil give jer et eksempel på vis praksis i action. Det er sagen om Michael. Michael er en ung fyr. Han havde et temmelig lavtlønnet job. Han forsørgede sin kone og et barn, og barnet gik på en lokal skole. Så mistede han sit arbejde. Han gik i panik over at være i stand til at forsørge sin familie. En aften drak han lidt for meget, og han røvede en taxachauffør -- stjal 50 dollars. Han røvede ham med trukket pistol. Det var en legetøjspistol. Han blev fanget. Han kom for retten. Han fik en dom. Pennsylvania retningslinjer for domsafsigelse krævede en minimumsstraf for en forbrydelse som denne på to år, 24 måneder. Dommeren på sagen, dommer Lois Forer tænkte at det ikke gav nogen mening. Han havde aldrig begået en forbrydelse før. Han var en ansvarlig mand og far. Han havde stået overfor desperate omstændigheder. Det eneste dette ville gøre er at smadre familien. Så hun improviserede en dom -- 11 måneder, og ikke nok med det, men løsladt hver dag for at tage på arbejde. Tilbring din nat i fængslet, tilbring din dag med at fastholde et job. Det gjorde han. Han afsonede sin dom. Han restituerede sig og fandt et nyt job. Og familien blev forenet.
So I'll give you an example of wise practice in action. It's the case of Michael. Michael's a young guy. He had a pretty low-wage job. He was supporting his wife and a child, and the child was going to parochial school. Then he lost his job. He panicked about being able to support his family. One night, he drank a little too much, and he robbed a cab driver -- stole 50 dollars. He robbed him at gunpoint. It was a toy gun. He got caught. He got tried. He got convicted. The Pennsylvania sentencing guidelines required a minimum sentence for a crime like this of two years, 24 months. The judge on the case, Judge Lois Forer thought that this made no sense. He had never committed a crime before. He was a responsible husband and father. He had been faced with desperate circumstances. All this would do is wreck a family. And so she improvised a sentence -- 11 months, and not only that, but release every day to go to work. Spend your night in jail, spend your day holding down a job. He did. He served out his sentence. He made restitution and found himself a new job. And the family was united.
Og det lod til at være på vej mod en form for et anstændigt liv -- en lykkelig slutning på en historie der involverede vis improvisation fra en vis dommer. Men det viste sig at anklageren ikke var glad over at dommer Forer havde ignoreret retningslinjerne for strafudmåling og på en måde havde opfundet sine egne, så han appellerede. Og han bad om den obligatoriske minimumsstraf for væbnet røveri. Han havde trods alt en legetøjspistol. Den obligatoriske minimumsstraf for væbnet røveri er fem år. Han vandt appellen. Michael blev idømt fem år i fængslet. Dommer Forer skulle følge loven. Og for øvrigt, appellen kom igennem efter han havde afsonet sin straf, så han var ude og arbejdede og forsørgede sin familie og han skulle tilbage til fængslet. Dommer Forer gjorde hvad hun var påkrævet at gøre, og så sagde hun sit dommersæde op. Og Michael forsvandt. Så det er et eksempel, på både visdom i praksis og undermineringen af visdom af regler der er til for, selvfølgelig, at gøre tingene bedre.
And it seemed on the road to some sort of a decent life -- a happy ending to a story involving wise improvisation from a wise judge. But it turned out the prosecutor was not happy that Judge Forer ignored the sentencing guidelines and sort of invented her own, and so he appealed. And he asked for the mandatory minimum sentence for armed robbery. He did after all have a toy gun. The mandatory minimum sentence for armed robbery is five years. He won the appeal. Michael was sentenced to five years in prison. Judge Forer had to follow the law. And by the way, this appeal went through after he had finished serving his sentence, so he was out and working at a job and taking care of his family and he had to go back into jail. Judge Forer did what she was required to do, and then she quit the bench. And Michael disappeared. So that is an example, both of wisdom in practice and the subversion of wisdom by rules that are meant, of course, to make things better.
Overvej fr. Dewey. Fr. Dewes er lærer på en folkeskole i Texas. Hun lyttede en dag til en konsulent der prøvede at hjælpe lærere med at løfte børnenes scorer, så skolen ville opnå den elite kategori procentvis i antallet af børn der består de store test. Alle disse skoler i Texas konkurrerer med hinanden til at opnå disse milepæle, og der er bonusser og forskellige andre goder der kommer hvis man vinder over de andre skoler. Så her var konsulentens råd: for det første, spild ikke tiden på børn der består testen uanset hvad man gør. For det andet, spild ikke tiden på børn der ikke består testen uanset hvad man gør. For det tredje, spild ikke tiden på børn der for sent er flyttet til distriktet for at deres scorer tæller med. Fokuser al ens tid og opmærksomhed på de børn der er boblere, de såkaldte "bobler børn" -- børn hvor ens indgriben med nød og næppe kan få dem over linjen fra at dumpe til at bestå. Så fr. Dewey hørte dette, og hun rystede på hovedet i afmagt mens medkollegaer mere eller mindre opmuntrede hinanden og nikkede billigende. Det er som om de skulle til at spille amerikansk fodbold. For fr. Dewey er dette ikke grunden til at hun blev lærer.
Now consider Ms. Dewey. Ms. Dewey's a teacher in a Texas elementary school. She found herself listening to a consultant one day who was trying to help teachers boost the test scores of the kids, so that the school would reach the elite category in percentage of kids passing big tests. All these schools in Texas compete with one another to achieve these milestones, and there are bonuses and various other treats that come if you beat the other schools. So here was the consultant's advice: first, don't waste your time on kids who are going to pass the test no matter what you do. Second, don't waste your time on kids who can't pass the test no matter what you do. Third, don't waste your time on kids who moved into the district too late for their scores to be counted. Focus all of your time and attention on the kids who are on the bubble, the so-called "bubble kids" -- kids where your intervention can get them just maybe over the line from failing to passing. So Ms. Dewey heard this, and she shook her head in despair while fellow teachers were sort of cheering each other on and nodding approvingly. It's like they were about to go play a football game. For Ms. Dewey, this isn't why she became a teacher.
Nu er Ken og jeg ikke naive, og vi forstår at man skal have regler. Man har brug for tilskyndelse. Mennesker skal tjene penge. Men problemet med at sætte sin lid til regler og tilskyndelse er at de demoraliserer professionel aktivitet, og de demoraliserer professionel aktivitet på to måder. For det første, demoraliserer de mennesker der er engagerede i aktiviteten. Dommer Forer siger op, og fr. Dewey er blevet totalt nedslået. Og for det andet, de demoraliserer selve aktiviteten. Selve fremgangsmåden er demoraliserende, og de praktiserende bliver demoraliserede. Det skaber mennesker -- når man manipulerer tilskyndelser til at få mennesker til at gøre det rigtige -- skaber det mennesker der er afhængige af tilskyndelse. Det vil sige, det skaber mennesker der kun gør ting for at få tilskyndelse.
Now Ken and I are not naive, and we understand that you need to have rules. You need to have incentives. People have to make a living. But the problem with relying on rules and incentives is that they demoralize professional activity, and they demoralize professional activity in two senses. First, they demoralize the people who are engaged in the activity. Judge Forer quits, and Ms. Dewey in completely disheartened. And second, they demoralize the activity itself. The very practice is demoralized, and the practitioners are demoralized. It creates people -- when you manipulate incentives to get people to do the right thing -- it creates people who are addicted to incentives. That is to say, it creates people who only do things for incentives.
Det slående ved dette er at psykologer har vidst dette i 30 år. Psykologer har kendt til de negative konsekvenser af at skabe et incitament af alt i 30 år. Vi ved, at hvis man belønner børn for at tegne billeder, bliver de ligeglade med det at tegne og tænker kun på belønningen. Hvis man belønner børn for at læse bøger, bliver de ligeglade med hvad der er i bøgerne og tænker kun på hvor lange de er. Hvis man belønner lærere for børns score, bliver de ligeglade med at uddanne og tænker kun på at forberede til test. Hvis man ville belønne læger for at udføre flere indgreb -- som er et nuværende system -- vil de udføre flere. Hvis man i stedet belønner læger for at udføre færre indgreb, vil de udføre færre. Det vi vil have, selvfølgelig, er at lægerne der udfører præcis det rigtige antal indgreb og udfører det rigtige antal for de rigtige grunde -- nemlig, at sørge for patienternes ve og vel. Psykologer har vidst dette i årtier, og det er på tide for beslutningstagere at begynde at lægge mærke og lytte til psykologer en lille smule, i stedet for økonomer.
Now the striking thing about this is that psychologists have known this for 30 years. Psychologists have known about the negative consequences of incentivizing everything for 30 years. We know that if you reward kids for drawing pictures, they stop caring about the drawing and care only about the reward. If you reward kids for reading books, they stop caring about what's in the books and only care about how long they are. If you reward teachers for kids' test scores, they stop caring about educating and only care about test preparation. If you were to reward doctors for doing more procedures -- which is the current system -- they would do more. If instead you reward doctors for doing fewer procedures, they will do fewer. What we want, of course, is doctors who do just the right amount of procedures and do the right amount for the right reason -- namely, to serve the welfare of their patients. Psychologists have known this for decades, and it's time for policymakers to start paying attention and listen to psychologists a little bit, instead of economists.
Og det behøver ikke at være på denne måde. Vi mener, Ken og jeg, at der er virkelige kilder til håb. Vi identificerer en slags mennesker i alle disse kutymer som vi kalder kloge lovløse. Der er mennesker der, bliver tvunget til at operere i et system der kræver at man følger regler og skaber tilskyndelser, finder en måde rundt om reglerne, finder en måde til at omstyrte reglerne. Så der er lærere der har manuskripter de skal følge, og de ved at de skal følge disse manuskripter, vil børnene ikke lære noget. Så det de gør er at de følger manuskripterne, men de følger manuskripterne dobbelt så hurtigt og gemmer små ekstra stykker tid hvori de underviser på måden som de faktisk ved er effektive. Så dette er små almindelige, helte i hverdagen, og de er utrolig beundringsværdigt, men der er ikke nogen måde hvorpå de kan bevare denne slags aktivitet overfor et system der enten udrydder dem eller slider dem ned.
And it doesn't have to be this way. We think, Ken and I, that there are real sources of hope. We identify one set of people in all of these practices who we call canny outlaws. These are people who, being forced to operate in a system that demands rule-following and creates incentives, find away around the rules, find a way to subvert the rules. So there are teachers who have these scripts to follow, and they know that if they follow these scripts, the kids will learn nothing. And so what they do is they follow the scripts, but they follow the scripts at double-time and squirrel away little bits of extra time during which they teach in the way that they actually know is effective. So these are little ordinary, everyday heroes, and they're incredibly admirable, but there's no way that they can sustain this kind of activity in the face of a system that either roots them out or grinds them down.
Så kloge lovløse er bedre end ingenting, men det er svært at forstille sig en klog lovløs der fastholder det i en ubestemt tidsperiode. De folk vi kalder systemforandrerer. Dette er mennesker der ser efter ikke at undvige systemets regler og reguleringer, men at forandre systemet, og vi taler om adskillige. En bestemt er en dommer der hedder Robert Russell. Og en dag blev han konfronteret med sagen om Gary Pettengill. Pettengill var en 23-årig krigsveteran der havde planlagt at gøre karriere i hæren, men så fik han en alvorlig rygskade i Irak, og det tvang ham til at tage en helbredsmæssig hjemsendelse. Han blev gift, han havde et tredje barn på vej, han led af PTSD, ud over den dårlige ryg, og tilbagevendende mareridt, og han begyndte at bruge marihuana til at lindre nogle af symptomerne. Han var kun i stand til at få et deltidsarbejde på grund af sin ryg, så han var ikke i stand til at tjene nok til at få mad på bordet og forsørge sin familie. Så han begyndte at sælge marihuana. Han blev taget i en narkorazzia. Han familie blev sparket ud af deres lejlighed, og velfærdssystemet truede med at tage hans børn fra ham.
So canny outlaws are better than nothing, but it's hard to imagine any canny outlaw sustaining that for an indefinite period of time. More hopeful are people we call system-changers. These are people who are looking not to dodge the system's rules and regulations, but to transform the system, and we talk about several. One in particular is a judge named Robert Russell. And one day he was faced with the case of Gary Pettengill. Pettengill was a 23-year-old vet who had planned to make the army a career, but then he got a severe back injury in Iraq, and that forced him to take a medical discharge. He was married, he had a third kid on the way, he suffered from PTSD, in addition to the bad back, and recurrent nightmares, and he had started using marijuana to ease some of the symptoms. He was only able to get part-time work because of his back, and so he was unable to earn enough to put food on the table and take care of his family. So he started selling marijuana. He was busted in a drug sweep. His family was kicked out of their apartment, and the welfare system was threatening to take away his kids.
Under normale strafudmålingsprocedurer, ville dommer Russell ikke have haft noget valg ud over at idømme Pettengill alvorlig fængselsstraf som en narkoforbryder. Men dommer Russell havde dog et alternativ. Og det er fordi han var i en speciel retssal. Han var i en retssal der hedder Veterans Court. I Veterans Court -- dette var den første af sin slags i USA. Dommer Russell skabte Veterans Court. Det var en retssal kun for veteraner der havde brudt loven. Og han havde skabt det præcis fordi obligatoriske strafudmålingslove tog dommen ud af det at dømme. Ingen ville have ikke-voldelige lovovertrædere -- og specielt ikke-voldelige lovovertrædere der derudover var veteraner -- der bliver smidt i spjældet. De ville gøre noget ved det vi alle ved, nemlig retssystemets svingdør. Og det Veterans' Court gjorde, var at den behandlede hver kriminel som et individ, prøvede at forstå deres problemer, prøvede at finde på modsvar til deres forbrydelse der hjalp dem med at rehabilitere sig selv, og ikke glemme dem når dommen var faldet. Blev hos dem, fulgte op på dem, sikrede at de holdte sig til den plan de havde udviklet sammen for at få dem over puklen.
Under normal sentencing procedures, Judge Russell would have had little choice but to sentence Pettengill to serious jail-time as a drug felon. But Judge Russell did have an alternative. And that's because he was in a special court. He was in a court called the Veterans' Court. In the Veterans' Court -- this was the first of its kind in the United States. Judge Russell created the Veterans' Court. It was a court only for veterans who had broken the law. And he had created it exactly because mandatory sentencing laws were taking the judgment out of judging. No one wanted non-violent offenders -- and especially non-violent offenders who were veterans to boot -- to be thrown into prison. They wanted to do something about what we all know, namely the revolving door of the criminal justice system. And what the Veterans' Court did, was it treated each criminal as an individual, tried to get inside their problems, tried to fashion responses to their crimes that helped them to rehabilitate themselves, and didn't forget about them once the judgment was made. Stayed with them, followed up on them, made sure that they were sticking to whatever plan had been jointly developed to get them over the hump.
Der er nu 22 byer der har Veterans' Court som dette. Hvorfor har ideen spredt sig? Jamen, en grund er at dommer Russell nu har set 108 veteraner i sit Veterans' Court fra februar i år, og ud af 108, gæt engang hvor mange der er gået tilbage gennem retfærdighedens svingdør. til fængslet. Ingen. Ingen. Hvem som helst ville skele til et retssystem der har denne statistik. Så her er en system forandrer, og det ser ud til at smitte.
There are now 22 cities that have Veterans' Courts like this. Why has the idea spread? Well, one reason is that Judge Russell has now seen 108 vets in his Veterans' Court as of February of this year, and out of 108, guess how many have gone back through the revolving door of justice into prison. None. None. Anyone would glom onto a criminal justice system that has this kind of a record. So here's is a system-changer, and it seems to be catching.
Der er en bankmand der skabte en for-profit bank i et nærsamfund der opfordrer bankfolk -- jeg ved dette er svært at tro på -- opfordrer bankfolk der arbejdede der, til at gøre det godt ved at gøre det godt for deres lav-indkomst kunder. Banken hjalp med at finansiere genopbygningen af hvad der ellers ville have været et døende nærsamfund Selvom deres lån modtagere var højrisiko efter normale standarder, var standard renten ekstremt lav. Banken tjente penge. Bankfolkene blev hos deres lånmodtagere. De lavede ikke lånene og solgte derefter lånene. De servicerede lånene. De sikrede sig at deres lånere vedligeholdte deres betalinger. Bankforretninger har ikke altid været det som vi læser om i aviserne nu. Selv Goldman Sachs plejede engang at servicere kunder, inden det blev en institution der kun servicerer sig selv. Bankforretninger har ikke altid været på denne måde, og det behøver ikke at være på denne måde.
There's a banker who created a for-profit community bank that encouraged bankers -- I know this is hard to believe -- encouraged bankers who worked there to do well by doing good for their low-income clients. The bank helped finance the rebuilding of what was otherwise a dying community. Though their loan recipients were high-risk by ordinary standards, the default rate was extremely low. The bank was profitable. The bankers stayed with their loan recipients. They didn't make loans and then sell the loans. They serviced the loans. They made sure that their loan recipients were staying up with their payments. Banking hasn't always been the way we read about it now in the newspapers. Even Goldman Sachs once used to serve clients, before it turned into an institution that serves only itself. Banking wasn't always this way, and it doesn't have to be this way.
Så der er eksempler som dette indenfor medicin -- læger på Harvard der prøver på at forvandle medicinuddannelsen, så man ikke får den form for etiske erosion og tab af empati, der karakteriserer de fleste medicinstuderende i løbet af deres lægeuddannelse. Og måden hvorpå de gør det, er at give deres tredjeårs lægestuderende patienter som de følger i et helt år. Så patienterne er ikke organsystemer, og de er ikke sygdomme; de er mennesker, mennesker med liv. Og for at være en effektiv læge, skal man behandle mennesker der har liv og ikke kun sygdomme. Derudover er der en enorm mængde frem og tilbage, mentorfunktion af en studerende af en anden, af alle studerende af en læge, og resultatet er en generation -- håber vi -- af læger der har tid til de mennesker de behandler. Vi får at se.
So there are examples like this in medicine -- doctors at Harvard who are trying to transform medical education, so that you don't get a kind of ethical erosion and loss of empathy, which characterizes most medical students in the course of their medical training. And the way they do it is to give third-year medical students patients who they follow for an entire year. So the patients are not organ systems, and they're not diseases; they're people, people with lives. And in order to be an effective doctor, you need to treat people who have lives and not just disease. In addition to which there's an enormous amount of back and forth, mentoring of one student by another, of all the students by the doctors, and the result is a generation -- we hope -- of doctors who do have time for the people they treat. We'll see.
Så der er mange eksempler som dette på det vi har talt om. Hver af dem viser at det er muligt at bygge på og pleje karakter og sørge for at en profession er tro mod den virkelige mission -- det Aristoteles ville have kaldt dens virkelige telos. Og Ken og jeg mener at dette er hvad de praktiserende virkelig vil have. Mennesker vil have lov til at være dydige. De vil have lov til at gøre det rigtige. De vil ikke føle at de har brug for et bad for at få den moralske "snavs" af deres kroppe hver dag når de kommer hjem fra arbejde.
So there are lots of examples like this that we talk about. Each of them shows that it is possible to build on and nurture character and keep a profession true to its proper mission -- what Aristotle would have called its proper telos. And Ken and I believe that this is what practitioners actually want. People want to be allowed to be virtuous. They want to have permission to do the right thing. They don't want to feel like they need to take a shower to get the moral grime off their bodies everyday when they come home from work.
Aristoteles mente at praktisk visdom var nøglen til lykke, og han havde ret. Der bliver nu lavet en masse forskning i psykologi om hvad der gør mennesker lykkelige, og de to ting der hopper frem i studie efter studie -- jeg ved at dette vil komme som et chok for jer alle -- de to ting der er vigtigst for lykke er kærlighed og arbejde. Kærlighed: på en succesfuld måde styre forholdene med de mennesker der er tætte på en og med de nærsamfund som man er en del af. Arbejde: at deltage i aktiviteter der er meningsfyldte og tilfredsstillende. Hvis man har det, gode, tætte forhold med andre mennesker, et arbejde der er meningsfyldt og tilfredsstillende, har man ikke brug for meget andet.
Aristotle thought that practical wisdom was the key to happiness, and he was right. There's now a lot of research being done in psychology on what makes people happy, and the two things that jump out in study after study -- I know this will come as a shock to all of you -- the two things that matter most to happiness are love and work. Love: managing successfully relations with the people who are close to you and with the communities of which you are a part. Work: engaging in activities that are meaningful and satisfying. If you have that, good close relations with other people, work that's meaningful and fulfilling, you don't much need anything else.
Jamen, for at elske godt og for at arbejde godt, har man brug for visdom. Regler og tilskyndelser fortæller ikke en hvordan man er en god ven, hvordan man er en god forælder, hvordan man er en god ægtefælle, eller hvordan man er en god læge eller en god advokat eller en god lærer. Regler og tilskyndelser er ikke en erstatning for visdom. Bestemt, vi argumenterer for, at der ikke er nogen erstatning for visdom. Så praktisk visdom kræver ikke heroiske handlinger af selvopofrelse fra den praktiserendes side. Ved at give os viljen og evnen til at gøre det rette ---til at gøre det rette for andre -- giver praktisk visdom også viljen og evnen til at gøre det rette for os selv.
Well, to love well and to work well, you need wisdom. Rules and incentives don't tell you how to be a good friend, how to be a good parent, how to be a good spouse, or how to be a good doctor or a good lawyer or a good teacher. Rules and incentives are no substitutes for wisdom. Indeed, we argue, there is no substitute for wisdom. And so practical wisdom does not require heroic acts of self-sacrifice on the part of practitioners. In giving us the will and the skill to do the right thing -- to do right by others -- practical wisdom also gives us the will and the skill to do right by ourselves.
Tak.
Thanks.
(Bifald)
(Applause)