[1]How to Weigh Your Options and Decide Wisely: Benjamin Franklin's

[1]How to Weigh Your Options and Decide Wisely: Benjamin Franklin's
Pioneering Pros and Cons Framework:

A worksheet for the moral mathematics of decision-making from America's
original prophet of self-improvement.
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[2]How to Weigh Your Options and Decide Wisely: Benjamin Franklin’s
Pioneering Pros and Cons Framework

When the 29-year-old Charles Darwin made his [3]endearing list of
the pros and cons of marriage, he was applying a now common
decision-making technique pioneered half a century earlier by
another revolutionary mind on the other side of the Atlantic:
America's polymathic Founding Father Benjamin Franklin (January 17,
1706-April 17, 1790).

Not [4]since the Stoics had there been so prolific a prophet of
self-improvement as Franklin. From the [5]list of thirteen virtues
he penned when he was only twenty to his [6]staggering daily routine
to his [7]clever trick for disarming haters, he continually devised
and applied various psychological frameworks to just about every
problem of existence. By middle age, Franklin's reputation as a
formidable sage of practical wisdom rendered him on the receiving
end of countless pleas for advice, many of which he generously and
thoughtfully obliged.
Benjamin Franklin (Portrait by David Martin, 1767)

In the late summer of 1772, Franklin received one such plea from a
friend - the English scientist, theologian, and liberal political
theorist Joseph Priestley, at the time working as minister of the
famed Unitarian church Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds. On Franklin's
recommendation, the Earl of Shelburne had offered the 39-year-old
Priestley a lucrative position as his general assistant, tasked with
managing his library and educating his children. Priestley was torn
- the appointment would grant him financial stability for the first
time in his life and would leave ample time for his scientific
investigations, but it would require that he relinquish his ministry
and move his family to the Earl's estate near Bath. Unsure how to
proceed, he turned to Franklin for help in navigating the
high-stakes conundrum.
Joseph Priestley (Portrait by Ellen Sharp, 1794)

Rather than telling his friend what to choose, Franklin taught him
how to choose. His letter, cited in Steven Johnson's excellent book
[8]Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most
([9]public library), outlined a sort of worksheet for the moral
mathematics of decision-making - the first known instance of a pros
and cons framework.

Franklin writes:

In the Affair of so much Importance to you, wherein you ask my
Advice, I cannot for want of sufficient Premises, advise you what to
determine, but if you please I will tell you how.

When these difficult Cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because
while we have them under Consideration all the Reasons pro and con
are not present to the Mind at the same time; but sometimes one Set
present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out
of Sight. Hence the various Purposes or Inclinations that
alternately prevail, and the Uncertainty that perplexes us.

To get over this, my Way is, to divide half a Sheet of Paper by a
Line into two Columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other
Con. Then during three or four Days Consideration I put down under
the different Heads short Hints of the different Motives that at
different Times occur to me for or against the Measure. When I have
thus got them all together in one View, I endeavour to estimate
their respective Weights; and where I find two, one on each side,
that seem equal, I strike them both out: If I find a Reason pro
equal to some two Reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge
some two Reasons con equal to some three Reasons pro, I strike out
the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the Ballance
lies; and if after a Day or two of farther Consideration nothing new
that is of Importance occurs on either side, I come to a
Determination accordingly.

And tho' the Weight of Reasons cannot be taken with the Precision of
Algebraic Quantities, yet when each is thus considered separately
and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge
better, and am less likely to take a rash Step; and in fact I have
found great Advantage from this kind of Equation, in what may be
called Moral or Prudential Algebra.

Priestley accepted the position, which proved to be a turning point
in the history of science. Less than three years later, in the
laboratory the Earl of Shelburne built for him, he went on to
conduct the famous experiment in which he focused the sun's rays on
a sample of mercuric oxide through a burning glass and discovered
oxygen, O[2] - a new kind of air Priestley marveled was "five or six
times better than common air for the purpose of respiration,
inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common
atmospherical air."

Complement this particular fragment of the altogether insightful
[10]Farsighted with Descartes on [11]the cure for indecision, Milan
Kundera on [12]knowing what we really want, Nobel-winning
psychologist Daniel Kahneman on [13]how our intuitions mislead us,
and Oliver Burkeman on [14]the psychology of why overplanning and
excessive goal-setting limit our happiness and success, then revisit
Franklin on [15]the truest source of happiness.
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My original entry is here: [21]How to Weigh Your Options and Decide
Wisely: Benjamin Franklin's Pioneering Pros and Cons Framework. It
posted Sat, 24 Nov 2018 21:31:31 +0000.
Filed under: philosophy,

References

1. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/brainpickings/rss/~3/Mx7wZ3GV37Y/
2. https://www.powells.com/book/-9781594488214&partnerID=44711
3. https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/08/14/darwin-list-pros-and-cons-of-marriage/
4. https://www.brainpickings.org/tag/stoicism/
5. http://explore.brainpickings.org/post/39343356555/benjamin-franklins-famous-list-of-thirteen
6. https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/
7. https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/20/the-benjamin-franklin-effect-mcraney/
8. https://www.powells.com/book/-9781594488214&partnerID=44711
9. http://www.worldcat.org/title/farsighted/oclc/1031915987&referer=brief_results
10. https://www.powells.com/book/-9781594488214&partnerID=44711
11. https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/01/descartes-indecision/
12. https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/16/milan-kundera-unbearable-lightness-of-being/
13. https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/30/daniel-kahneman-intuition/
14. https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/05/oliver-burkeman-antidote-plans-uncertainty/
15. https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/01/17/benjamin-franklin-on-true-happiness/
16. https://www.brainpickings.org/donate/
17. http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=de29ba37e7&e=b2dbad0745
18. https://www.brainpickings.org/newsletter/
19. https://www.brainpickings.org/
20. https://twitter.com/prjorgensen/status/1066445150040309760
21. https://www.prjorgensen.com/?p=2342