December 12, 2017, by apymgm

Laurie Paul’s Challenge To How We Make Big Decisions

Ever made a big decision? Make it thinking the decision you made was rational?

This seems like something we’ve all done. However, I recently sat in on a Philosophy lecture at the University of Nottingham in which Laurie Paul challenged the way we make big decisions!

1.How We Normally Make Decisions

When we make decisions we often do so by weighing up the options. Giving each potential choice a value from knowledge of ‘what it’s like’ to experience that outcome. The choice producing the best outcome is therefore the rational decision with alternative choices being irrational.

For example, if you were on a diet and passed a bakery then the decision whether or not to have a cake would be reached rationally. By deciding that achieving that beach bod would bring you greater satisfaction then a huge slab of chocolate cake you have made a rational decision.

2.This is How Me Make All Decisions Right? 

Wrong! Laurie Paul believes that when we make big decisions we can’t assign these overall values.

So, when we make a big decision it is a transformative experience providing us with the knowledge of ‘what it’s like’ which we could not have known without making the decision.

For example, if you were planning on doing a gap year and have always wanted to do one. Then you might assume that choosing to do one would be a rational decision.

But instead, this decision is non-rational, as you don’t have knowledge of what it’s like to do a gap year to accurately determine the values.

3.Accept it or deny it…

This article provides a glimpse of what Philosophy has to offer. Illustrating how a brief study of just one philosophical idea can challenge our own intuitions and offer a fresh perspective to how we view the world.

 

 

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