Choose Wisely

Rationality, Ethics, and the Art of Decision-Making

De: Richard Schuldenfrei, Barry Schwartz

Narrado por: Grover Gardner

A leading psychologist and philosopher challenge the shortcomings of rational choice theory—and propose a new framework for understanding decision-making.

For many decision scientists, their starting point—drawn from economics—is a quantitative formula called rational choice theory, allowing people to calculate and choose the best options. The problem is that this framework assumes an overly simplistic picture of the world where different types of values can be quantified and compared, leading to the one “most rational” choice. Behavioral economics acknowledges that irrationality is common but still accepts the underlying belief from economics of what a rational decision should look like.

In this audiobook, the authors offer a different way to think about the choices we make every day. Drawing from economics, psychology, and philosophy—and both inspired by and challenging Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow—they show how the focus on rationality, narrowly understood, fails to fully describe how we think about our decisions, much less help us make better ones. Notably, it overlooks the positive contribution that framing—how we determine what aspects are most important to us—contributes to good decisions.

Schwartz and Schuldenfrei argue that our choices should be informed by our individual “constellation of virtues,” allowing for a far richer understanding of the decisions we make and helping us to live more integrated and purposeful lives.

©2025 Barry Schwartz and Richard Schuldenfrei (P)2025 Blackstone Publishing

Very Theoretical

This book would be of interest to you if you are interested in learning more about the nuances that go into decision making. It’s very theoretical in its approach, and depending on your interests, you might find the content and examples frustrating to get through because the chapters are very long winded in their explanations.

Despite this, looking at it from an objective lens, the book is objectively good. It would be of interest to you if you want to learn more about Radical Choice Theory and the limitations to using RCT.

If I could summarize this book in a sentence it would be that analytical approaches like RCT are valuable in some contexts, but can produce a lot of negative downstream effects when it’s the default method of choice.