"In Choose Wisely, Barry Schwartz (an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College and author, among other books, of The Paradox of Choice) and Richard Schuldenfrei (an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore) mount a full-throated critique of Rational Choice Theory. They identify fundamental flaws in RTC's methodology and explain why reducing decisions to quantitative metrics is dangerous for societies as well as the individuals living in them. And the authors make a compelling case that decision-making should be an art as well as a science."
"Schwartz and Schuldenfrei acknowledge that when subjectivity plays a small role and the relevant options have been specified, clarified, and quantified, a cost-benefit analysis can be useful. Their examples include decisions about which health insurance policy to purchase, how much income to set aside each year to secure retirement, and whether to treat a cancerous tumor with radiation or surgery."
Rational Choice Theory grounds decision-making in mathematical cost-benefit calculations and assumes individuals possess sufficient information and ability to rank priorities accurately. Quantification can be useful when choices are well-specified and subjectivity is minimal, such as certain insurance decisions, retirement savings, or medical treatment options. Quantitative methods introduce a faux precision that can mislead decisions involving subjective values or ill-defined alternatives. Numerical rankings and metrics often fail to capture individual differences in priorities, such as class size or campus diversity. Effective decision-making requires integrating quantitative analysis with qualitative judgment, contextual understanding, and ethical considerations.
Read at Psychology Today
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