The Two Facets of Joel Kupperman (1936-2020)

by Howard Gardner

We were having breakfast at the kitchen table and my wife Ellen said “This obituary in the New York Times will interest you.” Indeed, it did!

Ellen had not heard of Joel Kupperman (age 83, died on April 8, 2020, in an assisted living facility in Brooklyn, probably of COVID19).  But I immediately recognized his name and remembered some biographical facts.

When I was young, a much discussed show—first on radio, then on television—was “The Quiz Kids.” Every week, a panel of children heard a series of short answer questions and the kids competed to answer first and answer correctly.  Joel was one of the indisputable stars—his hands shot up quickly, his answers most often correct.  And so—at least for those of us who thought of ourselves as ‘brains’—-this was a mark of distinction: one that easily competed with the accolades for baseball players like Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, or with matinee idols like John Wayne or Doris Day.

As related in various books and articles (and in a famous movie Quiz Show), life after this form of youthful celebrity was not easy.  For response-whiz Joel Kupperman, it was particularly challenging and painful—so much so that if the “Quiz Kids” program was even mentioned in conversation, he would leave the room. And he forbade discussion of his own childhood with his children and even, apparently, blocked out many of its details.

Post his “minutes of fame,” Kupperman went to the University of Chicago at age 16, where he was apparently bullied.  He subsequently received  a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Cambridge and taught philosophy for fifty years at the University of Connecticut.  In 1964 he married an historian Karen Ordahl (Kupperman), who teaches at New York University.  His wife and two children (son Michael and daughter Charlie) survive him.

But what piqued Ellen and my interest were two portions of the obituary—both of which happen to connect to my own preoccupations and my own research over the decades.     One was Kupperman’s views of intellect:  “There’s this weird notion that intelligence is a single thing, but people can be smart in some ways and stupid in others.”  I have no idea whether Kupperman knew about work on different kinds of intelligence—including the “theory of multiple intelligences”—but he certainly grasped the concept.

The second strand was Kupperman’s area of philosophical inquiry—ethics.  Two individuals interviewed for the obituary convey Kupperman’s personal perspective:

Duke university philosopher David Wong:  “Joel’s work assists us in our individual and collective endeavors to live a good life by articulation of much good advice and well-taken cautions.”

Daughter Charlie: “He started out writing about pure ethics, but as his career went on, he was trying to understand character, and why it’s so hard for people to be good… he talked a lot about the meaning of life and how to be a good person and what happens after you die. I remember him telling me that when you die, it like unplugging a radio. There’s a glow that remains.”

Though we did not know each other, and our lives took quite different courses, it fascinates me that Joel’s life encompassed  two issues that have come to dominate my own thinking for decades:  the multiplicity of intelligences and the search for a good life.  Recently, I have sought to tie these lines of work together in this blog post.

The Good Project and COVID-19

by Howard Gardner, Shelby Clark, and Kirsten McHugh

At this time—unprecedented for almost everyone—it is important for those of us who have so far remained healthy to consider what we might do that is constructive for others. And for those of us who curate this website, the following question arises and looms large: After over two decades of research, can The Good Project offer anything that might address current challenges?  To be sure, in no way can we be as timely and as helpful as researchers who are investigating the disease and/or attempting to find a treatment or vaccine. But we believe that the conceptual toolkit that we have created might be helpful.

On the project we speak about the ethics of roles—the thoughts and behaviors that are appropriate for the role of ‘professional’ or ‘worker’ as well as for the role of citizen.

Take the role of scientific researcher: We believe that the researcher should be well informed—or excellent; given the stakes, we assume that the researcher would be deeply engaged. But it is crucial as well that the researcher be ethical—continuously pondering what’s the better course of action in the current environment.

To list just two issues:

1. Should preliminary promising results be published and promulgated, or should one hold back until proper analyses have been carried out and necessary controls have been implemented?

2. Should one share all of one’s findings with other research laboratories, including ones with which one usually competes; or should one hold back, so that the credit (or the blame) remains squarely within one’s own laboratory?

Turn, next, to the role of citizen—for convenience, let’s assume that you are a citizen of the United States. We hope that you know and obey the laws that govern our form of government. We hope that you also are engaged as a citizen—keeping up with the news, discussing what you are learning, writing letters, voting, perhaps volunteering to help with ongoing restorative efforts in your community. But it’s also important that you confront the ethical dilemmas of a citizen:

For example, should you support efforts to vote by absentee ballot (safe but open to tampering or delays); or, instead, should you push for voting that can occur in a neighborhood but without risking the health of anyone else in the precinct?

In thinking about these issues, it is also useful to consider what we have termed the rings of responsibility. As you ponder “to whom or what do you feel responsible,” try to think beyond yourself and your family. In addition, consider more broadly your trade, the community in which you live, and even the broader geographic regions of our planet.

In addition to the ethics of roles, COVID also raises issues of neighborly morality—the range of situations addressed in the Ten Commandments and in the Golden Rule. We have all observed individuals who wear face masks and maintain social distance, as well as individuals who flaunt one or both of these norms. One does not require professional training or courses in citizenship to understand that by such flaunting, one is putting at risk not only oneself but also all those with whom one comes in contact. Not only does a mask-less mien violate the Golden Rule—it foregrounds particular disrespect to those who are older or have medical conditions and, accordingly, are more vulnerable.

Returning to the area of work, we raise one more timely issue. In our professional roles, each of us faces a personal dilemma: Should we devote all of our efforts to addressing the challenges posed by COVID19? Should we, instead, continue doing our customary work as best we can—noting that our ability to draw on our expertise in this situation is strictly limited? Or should we try to strike some kind of balance?

In recent Good Project blogs. we have taken up these questions and tensions. For example, in “The Financial Fallout of COVID-19: Business as Usual?" our colleague Daniel Mucinskas takes up the tension between a local Boston tenant who has lost his job due to COVID-19 and who has appealed to his apartment landlord for an extension on his rent. In this case, the landlord has to consider both his ethics of roles as a landlord, but also his role as a citizen during these difficult pandemic times.

In another COVID19-related blog entitled, “Remotely Polite and Professional,” Kirsten McHugh discussed how communicating online via Zoom can raise new ethical dilemmas. This blog describes how private chat transcripts between two other colleagues were released after a Zoom call. The transcripts reveal that a woman’s colleagues had ridiculed her weight. The woman then must pit consideration of neighborly morality versus the ethics of roles. To be specific,  she debates whether to approach her colleagues directly about their insensitivity—or instead to put her professional ethics first and report her colleagues directly to the relevant officer of HR (Human Resources). Such situations highlight how the “new normal” of COVID can foreground issues of neighborly morality, ethics of roles, and the role of a citizen.

On The Good Project, we regularly employ a tool—the 5Ds—designed to help individuals or teams determine which course of action to follow. When faced with a difficult decision, we work as a team to:

1. Define the Dilemma: Through conversation (over email, in person, or remote), we explain the overview of the situation and what we currently see as the possible options.

2. Discuss the Dilemma: In as much detail as possible, group members consider alternative viewpoints and scenarios.

3. Debate the Dilemma: We think through the pros and cons of each course of action, including whatever new options emerge. We each try to determine the optimal approach.

4. Deciding: We make a final decision on the best next steps, considering all we have discussed.

5.   Debriefing: No matter what the outcome, after a reasonable amount of time has played out and events unfold following out decision and action, we re-examine our process. We reflect on what we did right and what we could have done better. This step is key in making better decisions in the future.

Once one uses the 5Ds regularly, it becomes second nature to apply this procedure to matters big and small. As an example, we recently heard from a publisher interested in using our materials but concerned about a decades-old funder listed in the acknowledgements of the original work. First, a team member flagged the email and request as a matter that should be considered carefully and shared the communication with the rest of the team. Second, the group met online to discuss the problem space and what we saw as possible next steps. Third, we debated the merits and downfalls of each available option, trying our best to think of any short- and long-term repercussions (both positive and negative). Should we delete the funders name, leave the document “as is”, add an explanation of our termination of the funding relationship, or is there some other alternative scenario? Next, we came back together as a group and agreed upon the appropriate course of action. We reached out to the requester with our final decision. Ultimately, once enough time has passed, we will revisit this scenario and examine how our decisions played out—good or bad.

This is but one recent example—the 5Ds can be applied to any of the dilemmas outlined here.

In Howard’s case as a teacher, researcher, and writer in psychology and education, his own capacity to address COVID is limited; also, as an individual in the second half of his eighth decade, he is more vulnerable to the life-threatening aspects of the disease than most of his colleagues and most other citizens. That said, Howard is redoubling his efforts to carry out his own work in as excellent, engaging, and ethical a way as possible And whenever he feels that he can be helpful to anyone who comes across his path—by mail, over the phone, or in the course of carrying out their challenging responsibilities —he makes an extra effort to serve, and serve well.

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Howard Gardner is the long-time senior director of The Good Project. Shelby Clark and Kirsten McHugh are project managers at Harvard Project Zero.

Remotely Polite and Professional

by Kirsten McHugh, The Good Project researcher

The word “Zoom” has a different connotation today than it did three months ago. Rather than “zooming” around bustling cities in cars and on public transport, many of us are constantly logging into the Zoom platform for meetings, classes, and conversations. Most of the time, the process works just fine, but there are times when the learning curve of online face-to-face interaction is disrupted. Audio gets stuck on mute, video share buttons are accidentally shut off. The human element is also highlighted in these moments. Children pop in and out of conference calls and journalists forget to pair trousers with their suit coats.   

Privacy and security is yet another layer of complication surrounding the platform (an ethics blog for another day!). Companies have quickly acted to encourage users to protect their communications with passwords and install much needed patches to their Zoom applications.

However, what do you do, when it isn’t some nefarious outside hacker or a technical glitch that you have to worry about, but rather, once trusted coworkers?

In a recent Dear Prudence post in Slate Magazine, an anonymous writer describes how she unwittingly discovered a private conversation between two participants which took place through Zoom during the meeting. After receiving the transcript from the call with her coworkers, the writer found that two female colleagues had a side chat mocking her weight; it was all there in black and white for the writer to painfully examine. Embarrassed for herself and the two modern day mean girls, the writer asks Dear Prudence whether she should keep the matter a secret, or speak to her HR department.

This situation brings to the forefront issues of both neighborly morality and the ethics of roles. Howard Gardner introduces these two concepts in a 2012 New York Times blog. The simple explanation:  

Neighborly morality relates to how you show kindness and respect to those in your immediate social circles. (Gardner often relates neighborly morality to The Golden Rule or The Ten Commandments.) Included are the kinds of prosocial behaviors which we try to imbue in our children and which tend to flow easily in daily interactions.

In contrast, ethics of roles refers the standards and regulations expected of those acting in a professional capacity. Gardner illustrates this concept by linking it to the Hippocratic Oath for those in the medical field, or our expectation that journalists seek the truth and report on facts in a neutral or disinterested manner.

A lot of the discomfort described by the writer comes from the tension between these two ways of viewing her and her colleagues’ choices and behaviors. Neighborly morality was disregarded when Natalie and Lisa engaged in their side chat, tearing the writer down based on a superficial evaluation of her body. Neighborly morality also tugs on the writer’s heart when she considers that going to HR with this information may result in the two women being penalized or even losing their jobs (a high price to pay, particularly in these lean times).

Natalie and Lisa not only disregarded their neighborly morality, but also their ethics of roles. As professionals, they were not fully engaged in the formal meeting and they did not respect their colleague as an equal and valuable member of the team. The writer also must consider the ethics of roles pertinent to her work position. To be specific: while she would rather avoid making this embarrassing situation public, by not bringing it to the attention of her HR department she is allowing unprofessional behavior to go unchecked. She is also not sharing vital information that chats during Zoom are transcribed along with all group notes for the meeting host. This negligence could lead to further issues when Zooming with those outside of their organization.

In the article, Danny Lavery, author of this Dear Prudence article, encourages the writer to bring the matter to HR. The Lavery argues that the rest of the company needs to know what “private” means on Zoom (or any other new technology) and that the writer deserves to expect professional behavior from her co-workers at all times. She is encouraged not to concern herself with the possible repercussions for the two other women. In this way, Lavery argues for the ethics of roles to take precedence over neighborly morality.

I have to agree with Lavery. To be sure, speaking up might seem harder than repressing the incident in the short-term, but in the long term it will keep this wound from festering and perhaps growing into an even larger problem.

Have you ever been in a situation such as this? In pondering and arriving at a decision when faced tough dilemma, how did you decide how best to respond? Do you tend to lean on the tenants of neighborly morality, or do you look to the ethics of roles?

April Wrap Up: What We're Reading

Here at the Good Project, we have been zooming, emailing, and Google Doc sharing our way through the first month of this “new normal.” Between research and writing, we try to take time to share-out articles and reports with one another related to our own work and the work of partners and colleagues in the field. 

Here are five reads you might enjoy as well: (link in title)

1.  New Report: Character in the Professions: How Virtue Informs Practice

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues recently released a new article on character and the professions. The paper examines tensions between following prescribed guidelines (i. e. professional codes of conduct) vs. one’s own autonomous judgments. In making on-the-spot decisions, do professionals fall back on virtue-based or rule-based reasoning? 

2. The Financial Fallout of COVID-19: Business as Usual?

We are all making tough choices about how we can do our part in response to the novel coronavirus. In this blog post, The Good Project’s own Danny Mucinskas reacts to an ethical dilemma many landlords and tenants are facing during these times of uncertainty.

3. Craft a Career That Reflects Your Character

Have you heard the chatter about “job crafting”? Our neighbors from across the river at HBS have been noodling over ways to take the reins of your career in an effort to encourage your best self. 

4.  How Can We Stop Prejudice in a Pandemic?

We’ve all heard the devastating stories of racially motivated attacks during the start of the coronavirus outbreak. The Greater Good Science Center takes their coverage a step further and asks why this happens and what leaders can do to stop prejudice and panic. 

5.  Called to Action

When we self-isolate and practice physical distance, our world can feel like it’s shrinking. How do you remind yourself of whom or what you feel most responsible? Let’s not forget the rings of responsibility that extend beyond our nuclear families. Danielle Allen’s team at Harvard offers strategies and approaches to encourage a civic mindset in students despite the pandemic lock-down. 

What are you reading these days?  Please let us know!  And, on behalf of The Good Project, please stay home, stay safe, and stay well. 

Take care,

Kirsten McHugh

Do family ties equal tied values?

by Shelby Clark, The Good Project researcher

In this moment of extreme polarization in much of our country, it is helpful to find ways to find common ground while also acknowledging and examining the differences amongst us.

To that end, I thought it would be instructive to explore the commonalities and contrasts between myself and a close family member-- by making use of two of the Good Project’s most common tasks, the Value Sort[1] and an ethical dilemma. Although we are both registered “independents,” we certainly would be classified on different ends of the political spectrum; indeed, I proudly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while my more conservative family member (let’s call him Ray) cast his vote for Donald Trump. We have similarly disagreed on and off over the course of my life regarding several traditional American controversies (e.g. gun rights, the role of government, the level of taxes for the wealthy).

The Good Project Value Sort presents an individual with 30 different values such as fame/success, power, honesty and “the common good”, and asks the participant to first choose their top 10 values, from which they will narrow these choices down to their top four values. The participant is then asked to do the same regarding their top 10 lowest values, and then to choose their top four lowest values. So how did Ray and I score? Did we share similarities despite our political differences? Or, alternatively, are our values polarized due to our politics?

An outsider might have expected our results to be polar opposites given basic knowledge of our political lives, yet our Value Sort results help to shed light on the nuances of identity. Ray and I shared two of our top four values and also shared two of our bottom four values. For the top, we both ranked hard work and commitment as well as self-examination and self-understanding as two of our top four. For the bottom, we both ranked efficient work habits and fame/success as two of our choices. Our reasonings were also quite similar. For example, regarding putting efficiency in the bottom four, we both argued for the importance of going slow and deliberately regarding your work sometimes. As Ray noted, “It’s like Thomas Edison said, he didn’t discover electricity, he discovered 4,000 ways that it didn’t work. If he was efficient, he wouldn’t have taken all the time not to try those other 4,000, he would have just waited till he figured it out.” We also both thought self-examination and self-understanding is important in terms of remembering where one “comes from” and how that impacts one’s interaction with the world. Given my many interactions with Ray over the course of my life, it is perhaps not surprising that some of his life views have influenced me, political party notwithstanding.

We also found that we had differences, though. I ranked curiosity and social concerns and pursuing the common good as the other two top values of my top four-- perhaps not surprising for an academic who studied curiosity for her graduate studies and who works on encouraging character development in adolescents. Ray, on the other hand, ranked rewarding and supportive relationships and personal growth and learning-- also perhaps not surprising for a self-made and educated man who works in a relationships oriented industry.  For the bottom values, I ranked faith and spirituality as my other bottom two values, whereas Ray ranked power/influence and solitude/contemplation.

We, at the Good Project, often pair our Value Sort task with our dilemma tasks as we’re interested to see how individuals’ values do or do not influence the ways in which people think about and interpret dilemmas. I asked Ray to think about our “Money Matters” dilemma, printed below, as I was interested to see whether or not we’d think about it differently.

Money Matters. Felicia is the twenty-eight-year-old founder of a national nonprofit organization that works with schools, families, and volunteers to help create safe schools and communities. Some years ago, Felicia needed to raise money quickly. She talked with a potential funder about doing a challenge grant: if Felicia could raise $20,000 from other sources, this funder would give her an additional $20,000. Felicia and her coworkers at the nonprofit sent in a proposal, and then raised $20,000 from other sources under the premise of the challenge grant. Then the funder who had offered the challenge grant called to say that she had “changed her mind.” Felicia was faced with an ethical decision: should she tell the other funders the challenge grant had been reneged on, or should she keep quiet and keep the money?

Ray looked at the dilemma before completing the Value Sort and says that completing the Value Sort did not change his decision-- he knew what he would advise Felicia right away, saying he encounters decisions like this all the time in his work. Ray notes that Felicia “absolutely has to tell [the other funders]” noting that she can “call and say this is what happened” and tell the funders that she made a “sincere effort and had the commitment” but that she had “no control and the person reneged.” Ray emphasized that Felicia should emphasize that she could “still do some decent work” with the money but that she has to give the funders “the option” to take back their money. When describing his reasoning, Ray noted that “in this day and age, it would get out [that Felicia kept the money]” and says that Felicia “could never raise money again...nobody would listen to her again...she’d be shooting herself in the foot.”

When asked if the amount of money made a difference-- say if it were a million dollars rather than $20,000, Ray didn’t change his mind, noting that Felicia should be prepared with data to argue why she could do good with the money, but that the funders should have the right to take back the their contributions. He noted, “I’d go to them each individually...go to them personally...say I’m here because the situation has drastically changed...be prepared with data, what I could do with a million dollars…. [but] they have a right to take it back, it’s up to them.”

For me, my answer was perhaps not as nuanced as Ray’s-- I simply said it was wrong for her not to tell the funders even if she could perhaps do good with the $20,000 that the funders could take back. I simply don’t wish to promote a world where more people are lying and dishonest with one another, as I ultimately don’t think that leads to a good society.

For both Ray and me, you can see how our top values are infused in our responses to the dilemmas. For Ray, one of his top values is rewarding and supportive relationships. Much of his response to Felicia’s dilemma is focused on how to maintain a trusting and supportive relationship between funders and fundee; indeed, he notes that without telling the funders Felicia will never be trusted again by future funders. He further notes that if he were Felicia he would go individually and personally to each and every funder to describe the situation to them, and, perhaps, further garner their support. Again, such actions could be a result of Ray’s focus on deliberately cultivating and maintaining supportive relationships in one’s life. Meanwhile, one of my top values is social concerns and pursuing the common good. This value might be seen in my very deontological and “duty bound” answer to this dilemma-- for me there is a right and wrong response to this dilemma, where the right answer is to be honest to your funders because I believe a poor society is one where everyone is dishonest and lies to one another. For me, Felicia can support the common good by modeling honesty for all.

Despite supporting different political agendas, Ray and I share many values and ultimately came to the same decision regarding the Money Matters dilemma. What might account, then, for our differences in political views? Perhaps, as psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued in his moral foundations theory, conservatives and liberals may value similar things but may give different orders of preference to those values. Haidt’s research has found that American liberals tend to particularly value two of the five moral foundations (care and fairness) whereas American conservatives tend to value all five moral foundations (fairness, care, loyalty, sanctity, and authority). Thus, it may be that Ray and I both value hard work and commitment, but when it comes to choosing for our country, different patterns of values for each of us might prevail.

Perhaps more importantly-- Ray and I both left this conversation feeling like we had learned a little more about each other, what we value, and how we think about things, which is our main hope for these tools. How might you use these tools in your own life or classroom? Do you think there are some decisions in your life that your values impact more than others? Do some of your values impact some decisions and some impact other decisions? What pattern do you see?

[1] Originally designed by Jeanne Nakamura