1. Choosism

Suppose I want to buy a car.

I compare prices.

I read reviews.

I look at maintenance costs, reliability statistics, fuel consumption, safety ratings, and resale value.

Perhaps I create a table.

Perhaps I assign weights to different factors.

At the end, of all the convictions I could have had about which car is the right one for me, I arrive at the best one in a very clear sense of "best".

I can explain this sense of "best". Others may use different criteria or weights, but they can also understand how I arrived at my conviction.

The decision becomes inspectable and, at least in principle, repeatable.

Many situations in life seem to follow a similar pattern.

A patient compares treatment options.

A student chooses between universities.

An investor evaluates opportunities.

A scientist evaluates competing hypotheses.

Different situations require different criteria, but the overall structure appears remarkably stable.

One gathers relevant considerations, evaluates them, and arrives at a conviction.

Let us call this picture Choosism.

Choosism is the idea that convictions are, at least in principle, governed by choice through criteria.

This picture captures something important.

Human beings really do deliberate.

They compare.

They weigh.

They evaluate.

They choose.

The spreadsheet for the car is a good tool.

The conviction that eventually guides action often appears more reliable than going by the gut.

Choosism begins from this observation.

The attraction of the picture becomes even stronger once disagreement appears.

People hold different convictions.

Experts disagree.

Political positions conflict.

Scientific controversies emerge.

Mistakes occur.

Manipulation exists.

Under such conditions, criteria become attractive.

If we had sufficiently good criteria, perhaps we could reliably distinguish better convictions from worse ones.

The search for criteria promises orientation.

The picture is attractive, and in practice it often works remarkably well.

Yet when we look more closely, two questions begin to emerge.

The first concerns the criteria themselves.

Suppose a criterion helps distinguish good convictions from bad ones.

What makes that criterion good?

One may answer by appealing to a second criterion.

But then the same question returns.

What makes the second criterion good?

The search for criteria appears to generate a certain kind of recursion that does not have a clear ending.

The second question concerns the background against which choice occurs.

When we compare alternatives, weigh evidence, and evaluate reasons, much must already be in place.

We must trust some observations rather than others.

We must understand language.

We must recognize alternatives as alternatives.

We must already find certain considerations relevant.

Choice does not begin from nowhere.

It takes place against a background that is largely taken for granted while the choice occurs.

The image of repairing a ship at sea, associated with Neurath, captures part of this situation well.

We can replace individual planks while remaining afloat.

But we cannot simultaneously step outside the entire vessel in order to rebuild everything at once.

Choosism appears to depend on something that is not itself chosen.