Rational Decision-Making Process

Students demonstrate the ability to apply various decision-making strategies and employ a rational process that avoids rationalizations and elevates logic over emotions and facts over feelings including:  

• Identifying long-term and short-term objectives; 
• Devising alternative courses of action to achieve the objectives; 
• Foreseeing potential consequences to each person or group affected by the decision (i.e., stakeholder); 
• Choosing the course of action most likely to produce the optimum (i.e., best possible) result; and
• Monitoring the effectiveness of the decision and making adjustments necessary to achieve the objectives.

Examples of tests for making decisions:

• Role Model Test – do what you think a person you admire for ethics and wisdom would do. (e.g., Mother Teresa, your grandmother);
• Publicity Rule – only do what you would do if you knew your decision would be known by everyone (e.g., reported on the 5 o’clock news or on Facebook);
• Golden Rule test: Would I want people to do this to me?
• The what‐if‐everybody‐did‐this test: Would I like it if everyone else did this?
• Positive Outcome Test (consequentialism) – when ethical values conflict (e.g., where the truth would be unkind) choose the best possible result by determining which option is most likely to produce the most long-term good and do the least harm for the most people;

Recognizing important decisions:

• Is there a possible danger of physical harm to you or anyone else?
• Could you or someone else suffer serious emotional pain?
• Could the decision hurt your reputation?
• Could the decision impede achieving an important goal?
• Could you or someone else suffer significant monetary or property loss?

Key Belief:

I will be a better student if I act on the following belief:

• I will avoid resorting to rationalizing the decisions I make. 

Application:

• Understand the difference between rationalization and a rational decision. 
• Prepare scenarios that allow you to determine a course of action that is based on rational decision-making. 
• Use literary works or historical documents to discuss if the choices made were rational or rationalizations.