This is an important new book about human motivation, about the reasons people have for their actions. What is distinctively new about it is its focus on how people see or understand their situations, options, and prospects. By taking account of people's understandings (along with their beliefs and desires), Professor Schick is able to expand the current theory of decision and action. The author provides a perspective on the topic by outlining its history. He defends his new theory against criticism, considers its formal structure, and shows at length how it resolves many currently debated...

In this book, Frederic Schick extends and applies the decision theory he proposed in two previous Cambridge books: Understanding Action (1991) and Making Choices (1997). He shows how the way we see situations affects the choices we make, and he develops a logic of thought responsive to how things are seen. The book considers many questions of choosing and some familiar human predicaments. Why do people in choice experiments act so often against expectations? How might they and the experimenters be looking at different problems in them? Why do people cooperate so often where the textbook logic...

The book aims to expand the scope and enrich the foundations of decision theory. By addressing such issues as ambivalence, inner conflict, and the constraints imposed upon us by our attachments to others, Frederic Schick reveals that our thinking is often more subtle than standard theories of rationality allow. Only a theory that respects that subtlety can illumine what is otherwise puzzling. The book contains many examples drawn from history and literature dealing with subjects such as love, war, friendship, and crime.

In this book, Frederic Schick extends and applies the decision theory he proposed in two previous Cambridge books: Understanding Action (1991) and Making Choices (1997). He shows how the way we see situations affects the choices we make, and he develops a logic of thought responsive to how things are seen. The book considers many questions of choosing and some familiar human predicaments. Why do people in choice experiments act so often against expectations? How might they and the experimenters be looking at different problems in them? Why do people cooperate so often where the textbook logic...