People often follow intuitive principles of decision making, ranging from group loyalty to the belief that nature is benign. But instead of using these principles as rules of thumb, we often treat them as absolutes and ignore the consequences of following them blindly. In Judgment Misguided, Jonathan Baron explores our well-meant and deeply felt personal intuitions about what is right and wrong, and how they affect the public domain. Baron argues that when these intuitions are valued in their own right, rather than as a means to another end, they often prevent us from achieving the results we want. Focusing on cases where our intuitive principles take over public decision making, the book examines some of our most common intuitions and the ways they can be misused. According to Baron, we can avoid these problems by paying more attention to the effects of our decisions. Written in a accessible style, the book is filled with compelling case studies, such as abortion, nuclear power, immigration, and the decline of the Atlantic fishery, among others, which illustrate a range of intuitions and how they impede the public's best interests. Judgment Misguided will be important reading for those involved in public decision making, and researchers and students in psychology and the social sciences, as well as everyone looking for insight into the decisions that affect us all.

Judgment Misguided: Intuition and Error in Public Decision Making

Business & Money

Baron, Jonathan

Management & Leadership

Oxford University Press

Against Bioethics (Basic Bioethics)

Governments, health professionals, patients, research institutions, and research subjects look to bioethicists for guidance in making important decisions about medical treatment and research. And yet, argues Jonathan Baron in Against Bioethics, applied bioethics lacks the authority of a coherent guiding theory and is based largely on intuitive judgments. Baron proposes an alternative, arguing that bioethics could have a coherent theory based on utilitarianism and decision analysis. Utilitarianism holds that the best option is the one that does the most expected good. Decision analysis provides a way of thinking about the risks and trade-offs of specific options. Like economics, utilitarian decision analysis makes predictions of expected good in complex situations, using data when possible, and focusing human judgment on the issues relevant to consequences. With such a guiding theory, bioethics would never yield decisions that clearly go against the expected good of those involved, as some do now.Baron discusses issues in bioethics that can be illuminated by such analysis, including "enhancements" to nature in the form of genetics, drugs, and mind control; reproduction; death and end-of-life issues, including advance directives, euthanasia, and organ donation; coercion and consent; conflict of interest and the reform of internal review boards; and drug research. Although Baron opposes current practice in bioethics, he argues that by combining utilitarianism and decision analysis, bioethics can achieve its aims of providing authoritative guidance in resolving thorny medical and ethical issues.

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Mit Pr

Argues that applied bioethics should embrace utilitarian decision analysis, thus avoiding recommendations expected to do more harm than good. 
Governments, health professionals, patients, research institutions, and research subjects look to bioethicists for guidance in making important decisions about medical treatment and research. And yet, argues Jonathan Baron in Against Bioethics, applied bioethics lacks the authority of a coherent guiding theory and is based largely on intuitive judgments. Baron proposes an alternative, arguing that bioethics could have a coherent theory based on utilitarianism and decision analysis. Utilitarianism holds that the best option is the one that does the most expected good. Decision analysis provides a way of thinking about the risks and trade-offs of specific options. Like economics, utilitarian decision analysis makes predictions of expected good in complex situations, using data when possible, and focusing human judgment on the issues relevant to consequences. With such a guiding theory, bioethics would never yield decisions that clearly go against the expected good of those involved, as some do now.
Baron discusses issues in bioethics that can be illuminated by such analysis, including "enhancements" to nature in the form of genetics, drugs, and mind control; reproduction; death and end-of-life issues, including advance directives, euthanasia, and organ donation; coercion and consent; conflict of interest and the reform of internal review boards; and drug research. Although Baron opposes current practice in bioethics, he argues that by combining utilitarianism and decision analysis, bioethics can achieve its aims of providing authoritative guidance in resolving thorny medical and ethical issues.

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

everybody knows are foolish? It's not because they're stupid or corrupt, say the authors, but because our leaders, like the rest of us, are trapped in foolish and unproductive habits of thinking. "You Can't Enlarge the Pie" analyzes the unspoken assumptions that lead to bad policy, wasted resources, and lost lives, and shows exactly why they're wrong. With fascinating case studies and clear, compelling analysis, they dissect six beliefs that serve as psychological barriers to effective government:1. Do no harm2. Their gain is our loss3. Competition is always good4. Support our group5. Live for the moment6. No pain for us, no gain for themBy freeing ourselves from the narrow way we evaluate our government leaders, say the authors, we can learn to judge their performance just as we judge that of business leaders: by the overall health of their organizations.

You Can't Enlarge The Pie The Psychology Of Ineffective Government

Bazerman, Max H.

Shonk, Katherine

Basic Books

What is intelligence? Can it be increased by teaching? If so, how, and what difference would an increase make? Before we can answer these questions, we need to clarify them. Jonathan Baron argues that when we do so we find that intelligence has much to do with rational thinking, and that the skills involved in rational thinking are in fact teachable, at least to some extent. Rationality and Intelligence develops and justifies a prescriptive theory of rational thinking in terms of utility theory and the theory of rational life plans. The prescriptive theory, buttressed by other assumptions, suggests that people generally think too little and in a way that is insufficiently critical of the initial possibilities that occur to them. However these biases can be - and sometimes are - corrected by education.

Rationality and Intelligence

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mental Health

Cambridge University Press

Psychology & Counseling

Thinking and Deciding has established itself as a required text and important reference work for students and scholars of human cognition and rationality. In this, the third edition, Jonathan Baron delves further into many of the key questions addressed in the previous editions. Baron has also revised or expanded his treatment of topics such as risk, utilitarianism, Baye's theorem, and moral thinking.

Thinking and Deciding

An introduction to current research and theory asking how should we think, what, if anything, determines our thinking and how can we improve our thinking and decision-making. The book is intended for students of psychology and education and those disturbed by human irrationality.

How should we think? What, if anything, keeps us from thinking that way? And how can we improve our thinking and decision making? The primary focus of Jonathan Baron's text is on the second question, but he considers all three in this lively three-part introduction to current research and theory. Part I offers a broad overview of thinking, including its role in problem solving and its relation to learning, intelligence, creativity, and logic. Part II deals with the formation of beliefs and the making of judgments. Part III concerns decisions, morality, intertemporal choice, and the choice of goals. In response to latest developments in decision making, Jonathan Baron has updated and expanded his important book, Thinking and Deciding and has also added a new chapter on fairness.

Behavioral Sciences

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baron, Jonathan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Baron, Jonathan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baron, Jonathan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Judgment Misguided: Intuition and Error in Public Decision Making

Against Bioethics (Basic Bioethics)

Against Bioethics (Basic Bioethics)

You Can't Enlarge The Pie The Psychology Of Ineffective Government

Rationality and Intelligence

Rationality and Intelligence

Thinking and Deciding

Thinking and Deciding

Thinking and Deciding

Thinking and Deciding