Responsible Decision Making

ISBN-13: 9781412808187 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 216 str.

Laszlo Zsolnai

Opis

What should I do?," "How should I deal with this?," "How should I behave?," "How should I act?" we ask ourselves such questions daily. But, this is only the first part of the sentence. The full sentence is "What should I do ... to achieve such and such?," for example to complete an assigned task, to do well before my boss or a client, to be pleased with myself, to carry out my plans, to make money in the stock market, to pass an exam, to complete an application, etc. These and similar questions that people ask, consciously or not, openly or not, call for decisions. What skills must we master, especially when there is a need to make not only elementary decisions, but also decisions that affect the existence, health, and even lives of people? That is the subject of this volume. Laszlo Zsolnai writes that we should acquire the skill of gaining knowledge. Only then will we stand a chance of reacting to things that are improbable today, but could become a fact tomorrow. Also essential is the skill of designing, i.e., preparing actions conceptually in order to make decisions before irreversible changes occur. Finally, it is essential to master the skill of multidimensional judgment within the space defined by effectiveness, efficiency, and ethics. This volume represents Zsolnai's attempt to build a model for making ethical decisions both effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the model is much broader than a purely analytical framework. It must tell us how to act rather than limit us to reflection on actions already performed; it must combine decision and praxiological analysis of human conduct. The proposed model enlarges the scope of the debate and suggests new avenues of both rational and responsible decision making. This is an original statement on the crossover of policy and morality.

Spis treści

1: Introduction: Responsibility and Choice; 2: The Idea of Moral Responsibility; 3: Criticizing Rational Choice; 4: Norms, Goals, and Stakeholders; 5: Responsibility and the Diversity of Choices; 6: The Psychology of Choice; 7: Modeling Responsible Decision Making; 8: Real World Cases; 9: Applications in Economics and Public Policy; 10: Epilogue: The Responsible Person

O autorze

Laszlo Zsolnai