The Institute for Global Ethics recently poled its members to identify the top global threats to humanity. They enlisted the help of Theodore J. Gordon, who was a co-author of a report from the United Nations Millennium Project exploring these same issues. They looked at issues including terrorism, CO2 emissions, global slavery, AIDs, etc. In his summary of the surveys, Mr. Gordon came to the following conclusion:

“If you look at all of these issues,” he said “and ask what’s common to them all, it’s lousy decision making.”

“There used to be a time,” Gordon continued, “when I thought futures research, my field, would make its contribution by improving decision making. But I’ve abandoned that thought. We could have the best insight into what the future might be — through magic techniques not yet invented — and decisions would still be terrible!” Translation: It’s not the specific issues that challenge us, but the way we fail to deal with issues of every sort. Ethics Newsline » Commentary » Humanity’s Worst Threat: Poor Decision Making

Mr. Gordon continued to explain why decision making is such a crucial issue:

He then claims that we need a science of decision making that includes futures research, econometrics, and ethics.

I am happy to report that such a science of decision making does exist (although it’s not terribly well publicized). It’s called decision analysis and is the foundational framework upon which Ethics for the Real World is based. It includes all the elements Mr. Gordon asks for, although called slightly different names. For those interested, I will be posting more information about decision analysis on this web site over time.

Tags: decisionmaking, ethics, clint korver, ethics for the future,