Today Cass Sunstein (in the picture above) talks about his book Choosing Not to Choose: Understanding the Value of Choice . Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is now working on group decision-making and various projects on the idea of liberty. Choice is often an extraordinary benefit, but it can also be an immense burden. Time and attention are precious commodities, and we cannot focus on everything, even when our interests and our values are at stake. If we had to make choices about everything that affects us, we would be overwhelmed. We exercise our freedom, and we improve our welfare, by choosing not to choose. That choice opens up time and space for us, enabling us to focus on our real concerns. Establishing these claims, and identifying their limitations, are the purposes of this book. When you use a GPS, you are effectively asking it to choose a route for you; it provides a default route, which you can ignore if you li...
A blog at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and mental health