Practicing Practical Wisdom

Wisdom is not an innate character trait; no one automatically is wise; wisdom is learned and acquired. More importantly, one can learn and acquire wisdom intentionally and skillfully — one can practice it. And, if the practice is structured in particular ways, the practice will improve one’s capacities to act with wisdom. This article clarifies theoretical muddiness and pedagogical imprecision by bringing together two important and robust strands of legal ethics literature. The first strand focuses on what the appropriate role of a lawyer is in a just society, while the second focuses on how a lawyer learns to be, or is formed into, a professional. Neither strand regularly considers the other. By putting the two strands into conversation, we demonstrate that a lawyer can learn to be wise, but that such wisdom must be situated within a normative end goal. The idea of practical wisdom has its roots in Aristotelian traditions. Much of the discourse about practical wisdom has focused on it as a desired end state. While that is an important inquiry, it misses a key question — how does one become practically wise. Our article offers a new answer. It describes a set of processes and capacities to develop practical wisdom — what the authors call “practicing practical wisdom.

Transnational Corporations Versus The State: The Political Economy Of The Mexican Auto Industry

The historical-structural method employed here rejects analyses that are excessively voluntaristic or deterministic. The authors show that while the state was able to mitigate certain adverse consequences of TNC strategies, new forms of dependency continued to limit Mexico\u27s options

Transnational Corporations And The Political Economy Of Export Promotion: The Case Of The Mexican Automobile Industry

Export promotion has replaced import substitution as the orthodox strategy for economic development. In sectors dominated by transnational corporations, however, such a strategy may run afoul of difficulties not immediately apparent from the neoclassical comparative-advantage perspective that has provided its principal theoretical support. Evidence from the Mexican automobile industry shows that an export promotion policy may face problems of a) demand rigidities in TNC intracompany transfers, b) decision dependency, c) difficulties in enforcing sanctions in cases of recalcitrance, and d) an unequal distribution of benefits between foreign-owned and domestically-owned firms

Quantifying The Predator-Prey Relationship: Lessons Learned From A Multiple-Prey, Wolf-Hybrid Zone In Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada

We studied winter kill rates and prey selection in an eastern wolf/moose/white-tailed deer system in Algonquin Park, Ontario Canada. Eastern wolves (Canis lycaon) are a distinct species, known to hybridize with both gray wolves and eastern coyotes, resulting in genetic variation within the study area. Deer in Algonquin are seasonally migratory, and accessibility of deer shifts significantly over winter. Some wolf packs migrate off territory to forage on deer, while others remain on territory, relying on moose. Our objectives were to 1) identify factors influencing variation in prey use, and 2) compare methodologies for quantifying prey use in a multiple prey system. We used fine scale GPS collar data to identify kill sites, and calculated relative use of moose and deer for each pack using several measures, including prey biomass/wolf/day, days/kill/pack and a newly developed method of time spent at kill sites from GPS data. We also conducted stable isotope analysis to compare with field collected prey-use data. Variation in prey use among wolf packs was most influenced by accessibility to deer, vulnerability of moose, and genetic admixture, and mediated by winter progression. Methodological comparisons showed that prey biomass/wolf/day tended to overestimate large prey items, while days/kill/pack overestimated the importance of small prey. Stable isotope results were inconsistent, revealing some possible weaknesses of this approach. We found wide variation in kill rates and relative prey use with winter progression, and spatial variation in age-specific predation associated with differences in hunter harvest pressure