Introductory description

We constantly face the need to make decisions, may they be relatively trivial (‘Do I go for the pepperoni pizza or the ham and pineapple one?) or momentous ones (‘Do I get married to him?’). Philosophers have looked at human decision making from a variety of different perspectives: What are the processes involved in the way people actually make decisions? How should we go about making decisions? What sorts of challenges do we face in making decisions, and how might we be able to overcome them? Should we regret bad decisions we made in the past, or just move on? This module aims to introduce students to some of the answers philosophers have given to these questions, and to evaluate them critically.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Rational choice theory (weeks 1-3)
   The nature of rational choice explanation
   Bounded rationality
   Philosophical critiques of rational choice theory
2. Hard choices (weeks 4-7)
   Incomparability and incommensurability
   Transformative choice
   Procrastination
3. Inter-temporal choice and the role of emotions (weeks 8-10)
   Dynamic choice and its paradoxes
   Temporal discounting and temporal bias
   Regret and choice

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• At the end of the module, you should have a good understanding of a number of ways in which decision making has been and continues to be the subject of philosophical debate, and how these debates relate to other areas of philosophy as well as to empirical research on decision making. You should be able to use some of the key concepts philosophers have used to analyse human decision making, and be able to critically evaluate both descriptive and normative accounts of human decision making in philosophy.

Indicative reading list

Andreou, Chrisoula, "Dynamic Choice." In: Zalta, E. (ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition)
Becker, Gary. 1996. “The Economic Way of Looking at Life.” In: Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 139 – 161.
Bittner, Rüdiger. 1992. “Is It Reasonable to Regret Things One Did?” Journal of Philosophy 89 (5): 262–273.
Chang, Ruth (ed.), 1997. Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hoerl, C., & McCormack, T. (2016). “Making decisions about the future: Regret and the cognitive function of episodic memory.” In K. Michaelian, S. Klein, & K. Szpunar (Eds.), Seeing the future: Theoretical perspectives on future-oriented mental time travel. Oxford University Press.
Elster, Jon. 1985. “The Nature and Scope of Rational-Choice Explanation.” In: E. LePore and B. McLaughlin (eds.): Actions and events: Perspectives on Donald Davidson. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 60-72.
Gigerenzer, Gerd, Peter M. Todd, and the ABC Research Group. 1999. Simple Heuristics that Make Us Smart. Oxford: Oxford University Press, esp. chapter 1.
Greene, Preston, and Meghan Sullivan, 2015. “Against Time Bias,” Ethics, 125: 947–70.
Paul, L. A. (2015). "What you can't expect when you're expecting." together with thirteen commentaries by other authors and a response by Paul. Res Philosophica 92, Vol. 2
Reuter, K., Messerli, M. (2017). How not to characterize a hard choice. Ratio 30(4), pp. 494–521.
Sen, Amartya. 1977. "Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioural Foundations of Economic Theory." Philosophy and Public Affairs 6: 317 – 344.
Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman. 1981. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211(4481): 453 – 458.
Ullmann-Margalit, E. (2006). “Big decisions: Opting, converting, drifting.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 81(58), 157-172.
Velleman, David, 2000. “Deciding How to Decide,” in The Possibility of Practical Reason, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Interdisciplinary

Apart from the philosophical literature about decision making, the volume also draws on, and interrogates, literature from other relevant disciplines, such as psychology and economics.

Subject specific skills

Students should be able to express themselves using precise philosophical vocabulary, appreciate what makes some questions about decision making distinctly philosophical ones, and engage independently in philosophical debate.

Transferable skills

(i) The capacity to read complex material effectively and critically.
(ii) The capacity to explain ideas and arguments clearly, briefly and accurately.
(iii) The capacity o think about problems by deploying the capacity for clear thinking and reasoning
(iv) The capacity to communicate effectively in a group environment.