Philosophy Friday: On Decisions And Their Results

Photo by Bethany Legg on Unsplash

In the late 18th century, Timothy Dexter sent a shipload of coal to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a coal-mining town in northern England—and made a fortune. Ill-meaning competitors trying to ruin this witless and gullible American shipping magnate had persuaded Dexter to send coal to a town that does not need outside coal. Unless that is, a sudden coal-miners strike created a shortage of local coal, sending prices through the roof just as Dexter’s ship arrived in a wintery Newcastle harbour. The phrase ‘Sending coal to Newcastle’, describing a pointless action, originates from this incident.

Was Dexter’s decision to send coal to Newcastle prudent or poor? If we evaluate his decision by the results it produced, it appears a great decision.

In high-stakes professional poker, veteran players have a word for such erroneous thinking — ‘Resulting’. Players who become seduced by Resulting, and discard their planned strategy because they have a few bad hands, don’t last long.

Dexter was lucky. The decision to send coal to Newcastle was ill-conceived yet led to a great result. If it hadn’t been for the unlikely miner’s strike, Dexter would have lost his fortune.

Poor decisions can lead to great results. We could smoke a packet of cigarettes every day for decades and still live into our 90s. Or we gamble our life savings on the shares of just three companies—without doing our research and due diligence—and still become multi-millionaires.

Similarly, good decisions can produce poor outcomes. We prudently don’t take up smoking but still get lung cancer. And we invest in a balanced and diverse portfolio of assets and yet lose money.

Maybe we need to think of decisions differently. A decision is good or worthwhile taking if, in the vast majority of alternative futures, one is better off than with a different decision. However, this condition alone is not sufficient. It is also essential that in none of the alternative futures, you are hurt so badly that you cannot continue playing—like the desperate casino player who bets all his last chips on black to ‘win it all back’ and then red comes up. We must be able to continue playing our game and and ensure we are not wiped out by a single bad result.

So, with these rules in mind, we can evaluate decisions more clearly and not be concerned about some unfortunate poor outcomes. Now, taking up smoking is a losing proposition as in most alternative futures, we will end up dying earlier than in alternative futures where we haven’t taken up smoking. We may smoke and still live to 90, a fortunate result, but it’s not likely. Similarly, as non-smokers, we may die early from lung cancer, but it’s much less likely than if we are a smoker.

Due to sheer bad luck or other influences, well-considered decisions may produce poor results. When we get bad results it’s essential to realise that the decision was the right one and stick with it. If we change strategy because early results are unfavourable, we will likely do ourselves harm.

Roman Emperor and philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius gave thanks to his adoptive father when he wrote that he had “Unwavering adherence to decisions, once he’d reached them.” If we make carefully considered life decisions, we don’t need to waver and change course because we have one or two poor outcomes. We know that would resort to Resulting. We trust our decision will work out well in the end.