ABSTRACT
Many writers, especially those advocating more incrementalist views on decision-making, suggest that the wise decision-maker ought to keep options open, because the future is so uncertain; the only certainty about it is that all plans will be overtaken by events and surprises, sometimes pleasant but more often painful. The recommendation to keep options open is clearly intended as a general rule. However, in the real world it is obvious that decision-makers constantly defy this suggestion, undertaking wars, radical technologies and political revolutions, where options are lost in copious numbers. As a description of how decision-makers cope with uncertainty, keeping their options open is falsified by every edition of a newspaper. Prescription, by contrast, is generally seen as of greater importance; it is far more important to suggest ways in which decision-makers might improve their practice than it is to describe their often pathetic attempts at making choices. Normative incrementalism holds that the future is so uncertain that any decision-maker will be advised to favour choices that keep future options open. This is not the end of the matter, of course, for maximum openness would be absurd; for example, building fossil-powered generating plant near every major town, because it keeps options open. Other elements must be traded against open options, but the central point is that, whatever objectives decision-makers might have, whatever preferences, needs, desires, values, or utility functions, they are likely to enjoy better returns for those decisions where future options remain open rather than from choices that close them off.
