Choose Wisely: Rationality, Ethics, and the Art of Decision-Making [Hardcover]

A leading psychologist and philosopher challenge the shortcomings of rational choice theoryand propose a new framework for understanding decision-making

For many decision scientists, their starting pointdrawn from economicsis a quantitative formula called rational choice theory, allowing people to calculate and choose the best options. The problem is that this framework assumes an overly simplistic picture of the world, in which different types of values can be quantified and compared, leading to the most rational choice. Behavioral economics acknowledges that irrationality is common but still accepts the underlying belief from economics of what a rational decision should look like.

In this book, Barry Schwartz and Richard Schuldenfrei offer a different way to think about the choices we make every day. Drawing from economics, psychology, and philosophyand both inspired by and challenging Daniel KahnemansThinking, Fast and Slowthey show how the focus on rationality, narrowly understood, fails to fully describe how we think about our decisions, much less help us make better ones. Notably, it overlooks the positive contribution that framinghow we determine what aspects are most important to uscontributes to good decisions. Schwartz and Schuldenfrei argue that our choices should be informed by our individual constellation of virtues, allowing for a far richer understanding of the decisions we make and helping us to live more integrated and purposeful lives.

“A well-argued and often enlightening exploration of how decisions are and should be made.”—Publishers Weekly

The authors make a compelling case that decision-making should be an art as well as a science. . . . Schwartz and Schuldenfrei are surely right that decision-makers should not expect more precision than the subject matter allows. And that most of the time, a reliance on reflection, back-and-forth reconsideration, and a serious atls(