The Issue

In recent times, the view that the doctrine of maximization is too something — too demanding, too unrealistic, too stringent, or some such thing — has come into a certain vogue. Not that we are supposed to “minimize,” however: The Hegelian synthesis proposed has it that instead, the rational individual “satisfices.” Roughly, the idea is that we set a threshold such that the next sample of what we are looking for — call it F — that meets that criterion is to be chosen, even though we may be well aware that somewhere out there, there are bigger and better Fs.

The question has always been what the status of the satisficing template is by comparison with the maximizing one. Prima facie, if the rational chooser is confronted, essentially simultaneously, with two samples of F, one clearly better than the other, and he must choose between them, then he will choose the better. It seems incomprehensible that he should choose the worse, in the absence of special contexts or reasons. Is the satisficer insisting that he do so?

There is considerable temptation simply to say that one who prefers x to y even when he agrees that y is better is eo ipso irrational. If we do say this, it would be, I think, because of the practical commitments of appraisal words like ‘better’ and ‘good.’ Is to say that x is good to imply that one would choose x, other things being equal?