8 - The Plausibility of Satisficing and the Role of Good in Ordinary Thought

Summary

When we think about whether it ever makes sense to choose something that is simply good enough even when other better things might instead be chosen, it seems that it can. We can readily be offered examples in which it seems that is just the choice we sensibly make. To use one oft-cited example, it makes sense to accept a reasonably good offer on a house one is selling rather than hold out for a higher price. It may be just as reasonable to hold out for more, but provided the offer is good enough, there is nothing irrational or unreasonable in accepting the first sufficiently good offer.

Thus the examples seem to show that satisficing — that is, to choose the merely good enough over an option which is better yet — is sometimes rational. However, many philosophers have wanted to argue that things are not as they seem. They wish to defend the idea that satisficing is rational only if it serves as part of an overall strategy to maximize. In service of this position, they have available a general strategy for dealing with examples that purport to show otherwise. This strategy is to ask the advocate of satisficing what it is about the lesser option that justifies one's choosing it over the greater. Once a reason is offered, the clever proponent of maximizing can incorporate that consideration into a more sophisticated characterization of goodness, so that options which satisfy the consideration will, other things equal, be better than alternatives.