4 - Equanimity

Summary

It is no paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications.

Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics (Oxford University Press, 1948)

A dutiful decision maker may not be persuaded to adopt a satisficing solution just because the gains exceed the losses. The satisficing options should also conform to a sense of fairness or equanimity. There are three additional criteria that should govern the ultimate selection of a satisficing option. First, if time and resources permit, a decision maker should neither sacrifice quality needlessly nor pay more than is necessary. Second, a decision maker should be as certain as possible that the decision really is good enough, or adequate. Third, a decision maker should not foreclose against optimality; that is, the optimal decision, should it exist, ought to be satisficing.

Equilibria

Although the satisficing set Σ_q contains all possible options that satisfy the PLRT and, in that sense, are legitimate candidates for adoption, they generally will not be equal in overall quality. Consider the following example.

Example 4.1 Lucy is in the market for a car. To keep the problem simple, assume that her set of possibilities consists of five choices, which we denote as vehicles A through E. The option space is the set U = {A, B, C, D, E}. Only three criteria are important: performance, reliability, and affordability. Suppose that Lucy is able to assign ordinal rankings to the vehicles in each of these attributes, as illustrated in Table 4.1. […]