Humanitas Introduction

According to historian Peter Gay, humanitas was considered a style of thought. It asserted a person's importance as a cultivated being, in control of his or her universe. The person who practiced humanitas listened to reason.

In the beginning of meditations, Marcus Aurelius listed off a number of virtues like self-control, practicality, rationality, and tolerance, which all together make up humanitas. So in other words, people who practice humanitas practice good decision-making. They are good choosers. They understand what decisions need to be made, when, and the impact those decisions will have on themselves and on others.

So in this lesson, we're going to hear from the world's expert on choice, Dr. Sheena Iyengar. She is a professor at Columbia Business School and author of the bestseller, The Art of Choosing. Dr. Iyengar is also blind and has been since she was a young child. So she obviously had to make some very difficult decisions in her life. I hope you enjoy her lesson.