Even though the participants reflected on the same type of situation, those who thought about a friend’s partner being unfaithful were substantially more likely to engage in each aspect of meta-cognition than the people whose own partner revealed they’d been unfaithful

When the situation is complex and moral goals stand in conflict, there is no simple moral rule that the wise can apply. Instead, you need meta-cognition itself to balance different moral goals based on the details of a situation.

At the same time, studies show that meta-cognition facilitates greater awareness of ethical concerns and increases cooperation. After all, moral aspirations on their own are abstract concepts. To effectively apply them in daily life, you need to take the big picture into account and compare it with a range of other circumstances you faced (or learned about) in the past.

In the common wisdom model established by the task force, the two pillars of wisdom work in tandem. Meta-cognition without moral aspirations would mark a cunning sociopath rather than a wise person.

You engage meta-cognition when showing signs of intellectual humility, recognising the limits of your knowledge. Or when you consider the diverse perspectives of those with whom you disagree.

we found that scientists, like many philosophers before them, considered wisdom to be morally grounded: an aspirational quality helping you figure out the right thing to do in a complex situation and promote the common good

Like Aristotle millennia before, the psychologists and social scientists who came after Clayton agreed that wisdom was oriented toward the pursuit of a good life.

With the advance of modernity, the discourse shifted from the good life toward the pursuit of rational self-interest and usefulness – ideas that focused on immediate benefits and aimed to reduce complex ethical dilemmas to a single common denominator, rather than balance and moderation.

the fascination with wisdom started to decline during the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment