Can philosophy AI-proof your career?

Today I listened to the third instalment of a series on one of my favourite podcasts - Philosophize This! - about the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Host Stephen West digs into what MacIntyre wrote about “the failure of the modern university.”

Universities should teach us how to think

MacIntyre is concerned, broadly, about the modern application of expertise without morals or context. He believed universities fail to produce graduates with core skill of judgement - the ability to appreciate the broader context and implications of the work they’re doing, how it contributes to social progress (or not) and aligns with personal and collective values (or not).

MacIntyre saw philosophy as a core human enterprise, not a specialist domain, and warns of the danger of training powerful, competent people who don’t see these thinking skills as part of their remit. He writes of philosophical blindness - that most people fail to recognise how many of their opinions, beliefs and ideas are located in a specific and subjective worldview, rather than facts or science as they might assume. There is no view from nowhere.

Expertise without judgement is dangerous

Many terrible things have been facilitated by clever people too narrowly focused on doing the science, running the spreadsheets, or following orders - what political philosopher Hannah Arendt so famously coined "the banality of evil."

In his book After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, MacIntyre wrote this killer line

“I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do’ if I can answer the prior question ‘What story or stories do I find myself a part?”

MacIntyre achieves in 28 words what I tried to pull off in this 4000 word essay and accompanying 15 page toolkit.

In short, MacIntyre believed we should all be conscious and reflective of our role in the bigger picture - and that universities are failing to teach people the skills to do this.

As podcast host Stephen West explains:

“Consider how possible it is for someone to become world class at manipulating one little slice of reality, while simultaneously becoming worse at understanding what their job means inside a life or a society.”

Technical skills expire quickly; philosophy endures

I wrote about this phenomenon in You Don’t Need An MBA in 2021, urging leaders to go beyond their narrow slice of technical expertise and become more context-oriented in their leadership.

In the book, I argue that your technical skills expire quickly and are easily automated or replaced. But making important decisions and leading people into the future - the judgement that your job description or PDP is talking about -becomes ever-more vital as the world changes and technology shifts

“Fewer than half of HR bigwigs are confident they’re equipping their workforce for the future. Only a quarter of business leaders are confident their people have the right skills to manage incoming change. One in four! We can see the gap, and we know it’s not right, but we’re charging forward anyway.

If our job descriptions and workforce strategies are to be believed, strategic skills are the most in-demand leadership capabilities. Ninety-seven per cent of senior leaders claim that strategic capability is the key leadership behaviour for organisational success – but 96 per cent of the same group insist that they lack time to build this skill.

According to Forbes, fewer than 10 per cent of leaders exhibit strategic skills. Nine out of every 10 people we trust to make important decisions don’t know how to do it.

We‘re not spending enough time teaching the stuff that never goes out of fashion: how to think and see things differently and respond strategically to change.”
- Condensed excerpt from You Don’t Need An MBA p.8

Five years later, with the AI wave destabilising every man and his dog, this is truer than ever.

Not An MBA: AI-proofing leaders since 2021

This is why I started the Not An MBA leadership programme, to teach exactly the strategic skills - the judgement - everyone keeps saying they want and need, but do not invest in developing or training.

Over 500 senior leaders from across New Zealand, Australia and the UK have taken this programme and learned these skills since 2021. They’re AI-proofed. You could be too.

Join us for the single cohort of Not An MBA running in 2026. We kick off in July and early bird pricing expires in a couple of weeks time.

It will be the smartest thing you could do for your career at this moment in history.

(Don’t just listen to me. Read testimonials from leaders at some of New Zealand and Australia’s most innovative companies, dive deep into graduate stories and flick through the curriculum. Reach out if you have any questions.)