International Phenomenological Society

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Beyond Optimizing: A Study of Rational Choice by Michael Slote
Review by: J. M. Moravcsik
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 237-241
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2107761
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ignored in popular journals, in the natural sciences, and in the more sophisticated
panel discussions occasionally found on public television in the United States.
For these reasons, once again, this volume deserves the attention of professional
philosophers, health policy analysts, legal scholars, and educators in medical and
nursing schools, among others. Deciding for Others is, I believe, applied moral
philosophy at its best. But "applied moral philosophy" at its best is much more than
"application"; this study reminds one of all that is left to be figured out even if one
presupposes a fundamental theoretical principle such as that one should never treat a
person as a mere means. I agree with Baruch Brody's judgment that the book will be
"the standard work on this important topic for years to come." I note that the book
has typographical errors on pages 88, 131, 164, 167, 258, 265, 331, 332 (two), 334, 342,
and 346.

DONALD VANDEVEER
North Carolina State University

Beyond Optimizing: A Study of Rational Choice. MICHAEL SLOTE. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1989. Pp. viii, 192.

The standard conception of self-interested rational choice, derived from economic

theory, is that of maximizing or optimizing the greatest good or satisfaction at-
tainable under the circumstances. Recently, it has been suggested that in some
contexts seeking not the greatest but only what is great enough, or good enough, is
just as rational as optimizing. The label satisficing is used to denote this allegedly
rational process. There are several historical roots for this notion. The most obvious
is the concept of a virtue of moderation. The moderate person in many contexts does
not seek the most of some good but only moderate amounts.
Slote's project in this book is to make out the case for satisficing; i.e. for re-
garding satisficing as indeed in many contexts just as rational or even more rational
than optimizing. Relying on our intuitions of what is rational and what is good for
an agent, he presents many examples of different kinds to show that his claim reflects
our everyday choices and decisions at their best. As he says: "... the moderate,
satisficing individual need not regard his choices and actions as less rational than
their optimizing alternatives." (p. 170).
A key part of Slote's project is to isolate and defend the rationality of what
might be called "pure satisficing". Moderation, as espoused by thinkers such as
Epicurus, is instrumental, cutting back on some pleasures in order to attain in the
long run the greatest happiness (e.g. p. 65). Again, Sen and others suggested that it is
rational to seek less than maximum over a short period of time in order to be able to
spread out a large amount of happiness or satisfaction over longer stretches of one's
life (p. 8). Also, there may be cases in which the cost of optimizing calculations is
very high, and thus-adding this into the overall calculations-it is not rational to
optimize (pp. 42-44).
Slote recognizes these types of cases. He goes further, however, and builds a case
for satisficing that is not instrumental in any of these ways. It is good and rational in
a completely non-instrumental way. Here are some of the examples Slote uses as
evidence. One involves a person who wants to buy a better house than the one he owns
at a given time, but does not want the "best possible house"; he wants a better house
that will be good enough (pp. 53-57). Slote deals with many interpretations of this

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case within which this decision can be shown in subtle ways to be still optimizing.
The person might not want to take the trouble to search further, or the "better"
house does not possess values that the prospective buyer cherishes, etc. Slote's point
is that while all these possibilities may be realized, it need not be the case that one of
them is realized. The person might just want a better house, not a "best" one, even if
cost, effort, etc., are equal for the optimizing and satisficing strategies, and that such
a stance is as rational as the optimizing one. Another case involves the kinds of
pleasures historically treated by the champions of moderation, namely the pleasures
of food. In the case presented a child is eating cookies, and Slote wants us to feel that
there is a point at which the child can be said to have had "enough", even if more
cookies are not bad for him, the additional time and effort spent in eating more would
not be a burden, etc. (pp. 58-59). There seems to be a level of sufficiency here which is
not just a matter of taking into consideration all of the factors of pleasure, health,
effort, etc. and then maximizing.
Slote presents many more cases. One of his concerns is to show that satisficing is
reasonable not only in cases in which material and purely sensual elements are
involved. For example, certain feelings of affection toward wives, husbands, or
feelings towards friends are also subject to satisficing. These are good things, but fit
into our lives in certain contexts only in restricted amounts. I find these cases not
quite as convincing as the others because someone might say that in these cases we do
optimize over the goods for the whole life of the individual, even if not for a
particular feeling (pp. 76-77). Slote thinks that under the same general rubric of
satisficing one can list deontological restrictions on maximizing benefits (e.g. p. 83).
I have misgivings about this being satisficing also; for one could interpret the
situation as having two stages. First, we optimize benefit; second, we invoke
independent deontic constraints such as not killing one person for the increase of
benefit for all. But, by and large, I find the majority of cases persuasive enough to
accept Slote's main thesis.
Chapter V deals-among other things-with irreducible interest-oriented and
morality-oriented dilemmas, and shows the existence of these as well as the rele-
vance of such cases to the issue of satisficing. I cannot do justice to this chapter,
because I never understood how anyone with average intelligence and sensitivity can
deny the existence of insoluble moral dilemmas. These crop up all the time in divorce
cases, in cases of deciding with which parent children should live, in cases in which
people must decide between caring for sick dependents and pursuing their own
personal happiness, etc. Perhaps other reviewers with different intuitions will
examine more critically this treatment of dilemmas by Slote, which I take to defend
something that I have never seen questioned by good analysis of cases or arguments.
Let us assume that Slote is right in claiming that there are pure cases of
satisficing. Can we give a general philosophical sketch of why this should be so? In
what follows I shall attempt to do this. First, I claim that many of the best "pure"
cases can be described as "touch of class" cases. As illustration let us consider the
following. A man has a large investment in a certain country, but after a while a new
regime comes in and nationalizes everything. Thus the man loses all. Eventually, still
another regime comes in, reverses nationalization, puts the economy back into good
shape, and offers previous owners compensation for the goods they lost. One of the
ex-owners thanks the regime and says that he wants only 75% of the compensation
offered. He admits that it would be better for him to have 100%, that he is under no
moral obligation to accept less, that it is not clear that his taking only 75% will do

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anyone any good, etc. He just wants to do it this way. He thinks that this is just as
rational as taking 100%. If pressed how he can do such a thing, he smiles and says: "it
is not that difficult; all it takes is a touch of class. You can do it too."
(Alternatively, we can have a neighbor say this about our "hero", since people with a
touch of class rarely say that about themselves.) This seems to me to be a pure case of
satisficing, meeting all of Slote's requirements, and to the extent that we admit
trying to do some things with a touch of class to be a rationale for action, we have an
explanation. It is interesting to note, however, that not all cases of doing something
with a touch of class are cases of satisficing. Let us consider a family with two cars,
the second a fine small sports car. The daughter comes home for a visit and damages
the sports car. When describing the situation to a friend of the family the mother
simply says: "We are having some trouble with the second car." She prefers this way
of communicating the crux of the practical matter, without mentioning that it was
the daughter on vacation and not the "resident" members of the family who caused
the damage. This is another case of doing something with a touch of class, but it seems
to me that this is not a case of satisficing. The thinking behind the action seems to be:
"we are a family; we win together, we lose together; we do not announce blame for
mishaps to outsiders, especially when withholding such announcements does not
cause anyone any harm". The family does not believe this as a moral principle or
obligation, nor do they think that this will bring some benefits. They just like to do
things this way. It is a matter of style.
Thus it seems that at least some pure cases of satisficing belong to the general
class of doing things with style, or with a touch of class. Let me try to reinforce this
judgment by comparing pure satisficing in prudential or moral matters with a-
linguistic phenomenon, namely that of understatement. Let us suppose that it is a
typical autumn day in Oxford. One person-possibly an American visitor-comes
into the pub and says: "It is raining like hell outside." Another joins him and says:
"It is raining cats and dogs." Finally an Englishman enters the establishment, puts
down his dripping umbrella, and says: "It is rather wet outside." Most of the
customers nod appreciatively. The third comment is clearly a case of understatement.
What is good about it? It violates all kinds of conversational maxims; it is not
explicit, does not give all the relevant information, does not say all that is relevant,
etc. It says enough though not all that could be said, and not all that on an optimizing
model perhaps should be said. Understatement seems to be a case of linguistic
satisficing.
What is good about understatement? Well, it seems to be a matter of style, of
wanting to do things in a certain way. People have the option among what I will call
linguistic ideals; i.e. having as an ultimate aim to be a certain kind of communicator
and listener. As far as their pragmatic linguistic conduct is concerned, this ideal is
basic; it does not admit of further justification, though in defense of it one can point
to a number of consequences that might seem desirable to just about anyone. Some
ideals can be assessed as less rational than others; but there will remain a residue of
ideals that differ significantly and cannot be in any neutral way described as more or
less rational than the others.
If this brief sketch of understatement and its pragmatic background seems con-
vincing, then we can turn to its analogue in the case of ethics.
In a recent paper I sketched what is labelled "ideal ethics", i.e.-roughly-an
ethics that centers on appropriate overall aims in life and associated character

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structures. Such an ideal underlies both our prudential and our moral considerations.'
It seems that people who want to satisfice in the kind of context I mentioned are
doing so because they think of such an approach as a part of their ideal. It is basic to
their outlook on life and interactions with others that-among others-they should
have this character trait. Having this trait-within ideal ethics-does not admit of
further consequentialist or deontic justification.
We have ideals not only for humans in general, but for different aspects of our
lives, and different institutions. Thus, for example, our ideal for the "economic man"
has no room in it for pure satisficing. The business executive who says: "that is
enough profit, let us not make more, even if costs, efforts etc. are equal; let us just
make enough and not the most, as a matter of style" should be fired from his job. To
be sure, the company might want to make less profit than it could because of other
pressures-environmental, or social considerations-but this, at least on my account,
is not a matter of satisficing, but of independent moral constraints on maximizing.
Similar considerations apply to health care. It makes no sense to say that we should
provide, given a set amount of funds, energy, time to spend, etc., enough health care,
but not the optimal one.
I am suggesting, then, that Slote's main conclusion is sound, and that one can give
it an appropriate philosophic background if one avails oneself of some version of
what I called "ideal ethics", a kind of ethics embraced by many classical authors.
In conclusion, let me return to the notion of rationality-Slote, like many other
American moral philosophers, places a lot of burden on this concept. We are supposed
to judge over and over again whether a certain type of satisficing is rational. Now
rationality is a fairly clear concept as long as we stick to instrumental contexts; i.e.
when we judge ways of achieving our ends. Rationality contains deductive, inductive
abilities, recognizing relevance, probability, and relative value ranking of potential
means. But in the contexts Slote and his anti-satisficing opponents invoke the notion
it is not functioning instrumentally. The question in connection with various
examples in the book is not: "is satisficing in this context a good means to a happy
life?" but rather; "Is this a rational procedure, in the same sense in which we ask
whether a certain inference pattern is a case of logical validity?" Thus our next move
has to be to see if there is a notion of rationality that can be invoked in these non-
instrumental contexts, that is neutral with regards to various ideals; or is it the case
that certain layers of rationality are fixed differently in light of different ideals?
Thus what is rational in economic contexts need not be always rational in individual
ethical choices, and even within ethics what is rational in the light of one ideal, e.g.
one in which certain character types are seen as having intrinsic value, is not rational
within other ethics, e.g. one in which only enjoyment attaining has intrinsic value.
In summary, then, Slote's book is very rewarding reading. It is not easy reading,
and the reader's assent or dissent will depend on intuitive reactions to examples; and
intuitions notoriously vary from group to group. But regardless of one's assent or
dissent, the book brings up very important questions. In this review I attempted in a
modest way one possible sketch of how one can develop Slote's positive views about
satisficing and place it into a certain view of ethics and of rationality. There are
undoubtedly many other ways; but this only proves the stimulating power of Slote's
ideas.

J. Moravcsik, 1990 "The Role of Virtue in Alternatives to Kantian and Utilitarian

Ethics" Philosophia, vol. 20, pp. 33-48.

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J. M. MORAVCSIK

Stanford University

Historicism and Knowledge. ROBERT D'AMICO. New York and London: Routled
Chapman and Hall, 1989. Pp. xiv, 174.

If all knowledge is ultimately dependent, at least in part, on some entities whi

historically embedded, such as styles of reasoning, theories of perception, concep
schemes, and the like, then isn't knowledge itself limited by and perhaps relat
particular historical locations? And if it is, if, in other words, there is no wa
transcend historical location for the purposes of adjudicating conflicting claim
establishing a trans-historical criterion of epistemic progress, then is knowled
any meaningful and significant sense, possible at all? To put this another way
historicism entail that the world, or the object of knowledge, is itself "withi
history"? This set of problems which historicism poses for epistemology serv
the focus for D'Amico's book, weaving together his analyses of such diverse figur
Popper and Foucault, Lakatos and Habermas. His goal is to clarify just what
historicism is (given its own history of misrepresentations), what its relationship to
knowledge is, and whether an acceptance of historicism entails the triumph of
epistemological skepticism and/or relativism.
The first hurdle D'Amico's project must overcome is the position that historicism
does not merit serious consideration on the grounds that it is unintelligible because it
defeats its own claim, or on the grounds that it leads inexorably to mob rule and even
fascism. D'Amico's responses to these knee-jerk dismissals are instructive.
Historicism is not incoherent, he argues, because it simply applies to itself. If
historicism entailed a commitment to metaphysical realism or the possibility of
transcendental truth, it would indeed be incoherent since it rejects the possibility of
maintaining these positions. But the claims it does maintain do not conflict with its
warrantability. As D'Amico puts it, "...historicism is not inconsistent, since it does
not treat general statements as meaningless or illusory. Rather, it treats generality
and universality as provisional conclusions." (147)
D'Amico's response to the charge of political perniciousness is equally persuasive.
Some conservatives have argued that historicism necessarily undermines the power of
traditional belief systems and values and has been proven to lead to moral collapse.
D'Amico's strongest argument against this is that historicism "does not require that
argument, reasoning, and reflection be abandoned." (146) Historicism does require the
reconstruction of many of the terms to which reason appeals, such as common sense,
self-evident, and a priori, but a reconstruction is not tantamount to an elimination.
Given this, there is no reason to believe that a historicist position would privilege
arguments based on political power or efficiency over arguments based on "nature or
truth," and therefore, there is no reason to believe that historicism will invite more
irrational violence than its contrary. Moreover, D'Amico suggests that historicism
as a problem, as a position that creates so much havoc from the mainstream point of
view, is itself a historical phenomenon, produced by the conflict between it and
current concepts of transhistorical teleologies and absolutely authorized knowledge
claims.
Having overcome these hurdles, D'Amico goes on to explore in successive
chapters the various formulations and treatments that historicism has received at the

CRmIICAL NOTICES 241

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