You might often hear somebody say, “that wasn’t a smart move” or “he shouldn’t be doing that” or “that is not an appropriate thing for somebody that (insert adjective) to be doing.” Now this brings up a couple of interesting points on how people live their lives and make day to day decisions. The first, not be being discussed in depth in this post, is the concept of unequal value between people. That is to say that, “what is good for somebody is not necessarily good for someone else.” Thus this makes things like Utopia and Heaven hard to define, because of the variability in the definition of a “perfect life” from person to person.
That said however, I do believe that on the whole or on average most people can agree on what is generally good and generally bad. Moreover individuals can make value judgments on their own decisions. The most obvious example is that most people agree that is “bad” to kill other people, so it is also pretty easy to come up with case that (more or less) clearly define a good decision. Another example might be a junkie who decides to start using again. An outside observer might say, “that was a bad decision for that clean junkie to start using again, I mean doesn’t he know he’s an addict?”
Furthermore, most of the time the individual has a sense when they are making a decision that is bad (good), that even they themselves would deem a bad (good) decision. However, that person still makes a bad(good) decision… the question is why do people make consciously bad (by their own definition) decisions.
I think that this topic is best discussed in the context of trying to lose weight. The reason is that losing and gaining weight is a long term goal that somebody has to reach. Therefore if somebody sets out, say as their new year’s resolution to lose weight, they are making a conscious decision that over the next couple of months they are going eat healthier and exercise more.
A couple of points about this. First this “decision” is a long term decision, one cannot choose to lose weight in one second, it is a process that that person is aware of the fact that it is going to take a long time. The decision therefore has no immediate impact or it does not change the person instantaneous status. For any reasonable aged healthy person it makes sense to plan for the future to improves one’s condition (in this case physical condition).
So why do we make long term decisions?
Well this is a very interesting concept as well. As in the case of somebody trying to lose weight, they maybe motivated to be healthier (say the doc told them they have a bad cholesterol) or they are motivated to be more attractive (say they haven’t been laid in awhile or ever). In either case, the person can not reap the benefits of that choice until the future arrives when they are thin and healthy. This is similar to the fact that you can’t spend the money while your saving it. You have to wait for the time that you have saved up enough cash to spend it on what you want it to.
The whole point of this thought experiment is that the benefits of a long term decision get reaped on the short term or in the moment. Once you are thin you feel better (right now) because you are healthier. Once you are thin you appear more attractive the opposite sex (as you walk around right now). Thus the whole point of making a long term decision is that you want to make the “nows” of the future better.
It seems as though we go through a sort of calculus where decide what the value of something is at the moment and weight that against what the value of something will be in future moments. So if you are the test subject trying to lose weight and you are now faced with the decision of whether or not to eat an unhealthy pie, you must go through some calculus:
How important is feeling of good taste and satisfaction right now?
How important is the feeling healthy and attractive in some unknown number of future moments ?
Now if we were to weight all moments equally, it would seem that not eating the thing is the natural choice, because all of the future moments will completely out weight the couple of “bad” moments you had while feeling unsatisfied (because you didn’t eat the pie).
However, the real difference lies in the face that what happens now is tremendously more important than what may happen in the future. Thus it the obvious conclusion is that we as humans are really only capable of experiencing right now. Even though we can plan for the future and anticipate and make judgment on the quality of future moments, it seem to me that the most important factor in your decision is how you feel and what you want RIGHT NOW.
This intrinsic limitation or this innate quality of existence is a powerful force that can be used to make both “good” and “bad” decisions. Our existence seems to take place over the course of time. We can look back by reading books and watching movies and talking to other. We can look forward by planning, forecasting, and hoping.
Thus decision making, which is probably the most important action that humans do that impact their physical, emotional, and mental condition. Therefore understanding how and why we make decisions is essential to making the decisions that we think are good decisions.