Healthy societies depend on a level of disinterestedness in individuals, professional groups, and institutions. Societies that are seen to valorize disinterestedness to some degree often have healthier institutions than those that don't. In an age where we need to have an opinion on everything, we need to reclaim the power of disinterestedness, writes Howard Gardner.

Whether or not we happen to know the meaning of ‘disinterestedness', most of us have an intuition for the word, or — better — for the stance that it designates.

When we observe a game between two teams or two players, we expect the referee to be impartial in making judgments. When we consult a financial adviser about how to invest a recent inheritance, we expect the adviser not to make a recommendation to the adviser’s personal advantage. When we face a difficult medical decision, we seek the most informed doctor, one who will recommend treatments even if they are ones that he or she does not perform; and we may ask two specialists who do not know one another to confer with one another and let us know their joint recommendation.

Yet, while the concept may resonate, many of us have given up on the possibility of disinterestedness. In some cases, we see it as an ideal too difficult to attain. In other cases, we may object to the very concept of disinterestedness — and see it as a fool’s errand.

In recent years, this skeptical stance has become increasingly popular within journalism. Sixty years ago, at least in the United States, most journalists would have claimed that they strive to be disinterested. Take, for example, well-known American journalist Daniel Schorr: this Jewish reporter was assigned to make a documentary about Nazi death camps: 

“I did that very journalistically. I didn’t faint… there were members of my family who were lost in the Holocaust… I was there doing a job and I did the job."

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From the same generation, Washington Post editor Leonard Downey was admired because he chose not to vote in any election. This kind of stance is no longer taken in our society. Many journalists of equal prominence do not embrace the stance of disinterestedness. They claim that we are all interested because we all have opinions and positions, and we should not pretend that we can be neutral, objective, or impartial. And while we should not overtly pursue our own goals, these journalists would argue that it is certainly proper to cover what we personally believe is important and to do so in a way that ensures our own values are not violated — or even that our values are evident and supported. 

Critics of disinterestedness argue that journalists should never have striven to cover Donald Trump’s campaign (or Boris Johnson’s tenure) in a ‘hands off’ fashion; they can signal their own value judgments. Most journalists today would balk at Leonard Downey’s stance — and some might not even believe it.

Well, that’s journalism — not really a profession, at most an aspiring one. But what about the “classic” professions? Certainly in medicine, we value the Hippocratic oath; we look askance at physicians who profit from recommending medicines and treatments in which they have a vested interest. Yet such misbehaviors are frequent, whether or not the practitioners are fully cognizant. And when it comes to other relatively established professions — law, auditing, engineering — we are more cognizant of a practitioner placing a hand on the scale — deliberately, knowingly, or not.

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