Transformative Decisions

Reuter, Kevin; Messerli, Michael (2018). Transformative Decisions (In Press). The Journal of Philosophy The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

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Some of the most fundamental decisions we make in our lives – like becoming a parent or moving to a different part of the world – are transformative. According to Laurie Paul (2014), transformative decisions pose a major problem to us because they fall outside the realm of rationality. Her argument in favor of that conclusion rests on the premise that the subjective value, i.e. the value of experiencing a certain outcome of a decision, plays the central role in transformative decisions. This paper challenges that premise and hence the overall conclusion that transformative decisions are usually not rational. In the theoretical part, we specify the conditions under which transformative decisions are possibly rational and likely to be rational. The data we present in the empirical part reveals that the subjective value often plays only a minor role in people’s decision process. Putting both parts together, we argue that people have a great chance in making rational transformative choices.

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