What constitutes a ‘good decision’? A panel discussion among Ward Edwards, Istvh Kiss, Giandomenico Majone and Masanao Toda

The fundamental question of this panel is not new to regular participants of SPUDM conferences. In the negative it has been dealt with at the Uxbridge 1971 conference by Van Praag (1975) and at the Rome 1973 conference by olander (1975). Their message, even at that time not a novel one, was that normative decision theory demanded an “irrational rationality” (Van Praag) of ‘good decision’ makers who would in reality rarely be able to survey all feasible options and their relevant consequences. Thus normative decision theory would not be descriptive of actual human decision behavior. This view has more recently been expressed and empirically documented by, e.g., Janis and Mann (1977) who contend that more often than not circumstances prevent us from being ‘vigilant’ decision makers.