On Taking Stories Seriously: Emotional and Moral Intelligences

Ongoing efforts to build intelligent machines has required reexamining ourunderstandings of intelligence. A significant conclusion, shared by anumber of noteworthy thinkers, is that real intelligence depends very muchon story telling and story understanding. Several examples illustrate howthis conclusion flies in the face of dominant (reductionist) understandingsof intelligence. Several reasons are then presented for the greater use ofstories in business ethics classes, reasons that progress from enhancing"conceptual' intelligence, to emotional intelligences, and culminating inmoral intelligences.