ABSTRACT
Decision is choice amongst rival available courses of action. We can choose only what is still unactualized; we can choose only amongst imaginations and figments. Imagined actions and policies can have only imagined consequences, and it follows that we can choose only an action whose consequences we cannot directly know, since we cannot be eye-witnesses of them. If we knew what would be the sequel of each of the different and mutually exclusive courses open to us, we should choose the act whose sequel we most desired. Desiredness of the consequences ascribed to a course of action, when those consequences, in all respects which concern us, are taken as a whole, is one ground of preference for one course over another. If we had unquestioned and full relevant knowledge, it would be the only ground. But where there is no such knowledge, and where the nature of time itself renders the idea of such knowledge empty, there must be other considerations.
