This provocative new book challenges traditional tenets about behavioral regulation in society as well as in business. Verner Petersen asserts that attempts to solve ethical problems by creating explicit guidelines, codes and rules discourage individual reflection and responsibility. Likewise, attempts to put important aspects of human life into tabular form, by devising schemes for counting everything that matters, have serious flaws, leading to further erosion of individual responsibility and insight. This book stresses the importance of tacit knowledge, ineffable values and a shared social grammar, as the foundation for individual responsibility and ethical awareness. It shows how the moral fabric of societies may be inculcated, changed and kept alive through individual decisions and actions. INDICE Foreword Prologomena: Strings of Thought Part I: Acute Problems 1. The Erosion of Responsibility 2. Ambiguous Spirals of Decay 3. Deceptive Measures Part II: Tacit Foundations 4. Tacit Knowledge and Understanding 5. Arguments for a Social Grammar 6. Weaving the Moral Fabric Part III: Expressive Actions 7. Containing the Logic 8. Self-Organising Solutions 9. Spirited and Value-Based Leadership References Index