In early 1900s, Charles W. Eliot, the erstwhile President of Harvard University proposed the idea of extending the Harvard Law School to a new Harvard Business School using the case and dialogue based pedagogy to train young minds in the field of general business; a feat considered impossible by several leading professors at the Harvard University. Thankfully, for many of us, Eliot won over his skeptics and the HBS opened its doors in 1908.
Roughly two and a half millenia earlier, Aristotle, the great philosopher, employed a similar pedagogy to train young minds at Meiza in Macedonia on moral character and statesmanship to produce leaders the likes of Alexander and his chief commanders, called the Companions.
Aristotle believed that Ethics concern the way we exercise character in situations where making the moral choice is not immediately obvious. Virtues such as mutual respect and admiration for each other can be inculcated, but it takes great amount of practice to make the right moral and ethical judgements each time.
He also believed that there are no moral absolutes. That practical decision making could never offer the same certainty and conclusiveness as mathematics. He held that the adherence to moral virtues depended on the situation in which those virtues were being exercised – that it was impractical to achieve the same level of adherence in every situation. Therefore, in all his cases, he encouraged his pupil to seek for the golden mean – a position somewhere in between. And made them realize that there is always a grey area - the deviation - which can always work both for as well as against them in any given situation.
His theory forms the basis of roughly every decision making that happens in a world full of uncertainties. From share broking to project financing, from strategizing and forecasting to market research and execution, the ubiquitous Mean and Standard Deviations form the basis of all theories of business and risk management. It forms the basis of the way minds are molded in the campuses of leading law and business schools throughout the world.
Aristotle said that each time a person exercises his abilities; he keeps getting better and better at it. For instance, the more decisions a person takes, the better decision he takes. The more a person performs, the better he performs. The more he exectutes, the more flawless he gets at it. Provided that each time he does that in earnest and with 'good' moral intentions.
Aristotle defined this 'good' in several ways. But he states that the highest 'good' for humans, the highest aim of all human practical thinking, is eudaimonia, a Greek word which roughly translates to happiness.
Aristotle equates this happiness to not only living well but also doing things well, in whatever it is the person choses to do.
He also adds that while most would agree to this principle, there will always be a conflict between people;
Between the majority... and "the Wise”...
