Making decisions is what it is all about - the absolute crux of courage. Will we have the strength to make courageous decisions, or do we lapse into expediency?

1. Jackson Institute for Global Affairs
Courage in
Theory & Practice
Roz Savage

2. –Napoleon Bonaparte (via Sara)
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more
precious, than to be able to decide.”

3. Week 6: Courageous Decision-
Making
❖ Circumstance:
❖ Reactive decisions
❖ Proactive decisions
❖ Degree of Responsibility:
❖ Free will
❖ Conditioned response
❖ Fatalism
❖ Morality:
❖ Moral energy
❖ Moral apathy
❖ Social Situation:
❖ Individual
❖ Collaborative

4. Courageous Decision-Making
Proactive Decisions
Reactive Decisions
Moral
Energy
Moral
Apathy

5. Courageous Decision-Making
❖ Circumstance:
❖ Reactive decisions
❖ Proactive decisions
❖ Degree of Responsibility:
❖ Free will
❖ Conditioned response
❖ Fatalism
❖ Morality:
❖ Moral energy
❖ Moral apathy
❖ Social Situation:
❖ Individual
❖ Collaborative

6. Proactive vs Reactive
Decisions

7. Reactive Decisions
❖ Ethical dilemmas (right vs right):
❖ Truth vs loyalty
❖ Individual vs community
❖ Short-term vs long-term
❖ Justice vs mercy
Can we predict which will take
precedence?

8. Ways to Break an Ethical
Dilemma
❖ Ends-based thinking (utilitarianism, teleological)
❖ Greatest good to the greatest number (over the greatest
period of time)
❖ Rule-based thinking (Kantian, deontological)
❖ If everybody acted as I am about to act, would that serve
the greatest good?
❖ Care-based thinking
❖ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
Kidder, Rushworth

9. Was Kidder’s analysis
helpful?

10. Proactive Decisions
Lifetime

11. Proactive Decisions
Lifetime
Which comes first - courage or
situation?

12. Generating Options

13. We may not have free will,
but we have free won’t

14. When Inspiration Strikes

15. Questions (from Week 4)
❖ Can I do this task? (self-efficacy)
❖ Do I want to do this task? (emotional)
❖ Why would I want to do this task? (cognitive - values,
purpose)
❖ Is this choice likely to arise again? (identity)
❖ What is the meaning of undertaking this task?
(worldview, significance, self-transcendence)

16. Courageous Decision-Making
❖ Circumstance:
❖ Reactive decisions
❖ Proactive decisions
❖ Degree of Responsibility:
❖ Free will
❖ Conditioned response
❖ Fatalism
❖ Morality:
❖ Moral energy
❖ Moral apathy
❖ Social Situation:
❖ Individual
❖ Collaborative

17. –Albert Camus
“Life is the sum of all your choices.”
Are your choices also the sum of all your life?

18. What factors do we take into
account when making
decisions?

19. Thinking Traps
Anchorin
g
Status Quo
(don’t rock the
boat)
Sunk Cost

20. Bounded Rationality
Tractability
(Herbert Simon)

21. Open Plane = Free Will (achievable?)
Plateaux = Conditioned Response
(Dan Siegel)

22. Field Theory
B = f(LS) = f(P,E)
B = Behaviour LS = Life Space
(aka Psychological
Field)
P = Person (needs, beliefs,
values, abilities)
E = Environment
(Kurt Lewin)

23. Courageous Decision-Making
❖ Circumstance:
❖ Reactive decisions
❖ Proactive decisions
❖ Degree of Responsibility:
❖ Free will
❖ Conditioned response
❖ Fatalism
❖ Morality:
❖ Moral energy
❖ Moral apathy
❖ Social Situation:
❖ Individual
❖ Collaborative

24. We All Have Boundaries
❖ Maximum and minimum ideals around:
❖ Food intake
❖ Exercise
❖ Sleep
❖ Working/studying hours
❖ Alcohol (etc)
❖ Should we also have a max and min around courage?

25. Exoskeleton = Boundaries =
Laws?
Backbone = Support = Inner
Morality?

26. Exoskeleton vs Spine

27. Exoskeleton vs Spine

28. Analyse Your Decision-
Making
1. what is the question I am trying to answer? (reframing)
2. assumptions
3. recent factors influencing mindset
4. decision-making centre (head/heart/gut, or intuition/intellect)
5. relevant values
6. similar decision likely to arise again (identity)
7. information available
8. time constraints
9. advisors/stakeholders consulted, why you chose them, what they said
10.risks and fears currently perceived
11.best case scenario as currently perceived
12.worst case scenario as currently perceived (including opportunity cost)
13.final decision
14.date to review your decision, how to evaluate success

29. Emergency Reactive Decision
Making
❖ Strengths
❖ Weaknesses
❖ Opportunities
❖ Threats

30. –Peter Senge
“People with high levels of personal mastery…
cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition,
or head and heart, any more than they would choose to
walk on one leg or see with one eye.”

31. Would we ever want to delegate decision-
making to AI?
(ref driverless cars)

32. Courageous Decision-Making
❖ Circumstance:
❖ Reactive decisions
❖ Proactive decisions
❖ Degree of Responsibility:
❖ Free will
❖ Conditioned response
❖ Fatalism
❖ Morality:
❖ Moral energy
❖ Moral apathy
❖ Social Situation:
❖ Individual
❖ Collaborative

33. –Margaret Thatcher to George H. W. Bush,
when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990
“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”

34. –Denholm Elliott
“Surprise yourself every day
with your own courage.”