ABSTRACT
If I am candid with myself I realize that when I ask for more facts about my prospects, my real uncertainties are about my own values. That is, I do not know what I want, having seldom faced such fateful choices. You can help me determine where my uncertainties lie by asking me whether more information (e.g., results of another diagnostic test or data from another study) could, conceivably, alter my choice. If my choice isn’t “sensitive” to such information, then I should be thinking about what matters to me rather than about what might happen. If my challenge is indeed figuring out what tradeoffs I want to make, consultation with you, my personal physician, can be particularly valuable but also particularly difficult. It may be tempting for you to tell me what you would do in my stead. That is a useful perspective, as long as I know how you are like me and unlike me and I feel no pressure to accept your hypothetical choice. It may also be tempting for you to tell me what you think I would choose if I understood the circumstances fully and could reflect fully on my prospects. That, too, is a useful perspective, as long as I know how you know me better, and worse, than I know myself-and I feel no pressure to follow this recommendation, either. Now, here I face a quandary. On the one hand, I’d like advice that is as personal as possible, using my values applied to my circumstances. On the other hand, that leads to quite an abstract inference. That is, figuring out what is perfect for me means that the advice is, by definition, unique. I would need to have a lot of faith in my reasoning ability to believe that I can think my way through to the right decision, working from first principles. Thus, it would probably also help me to hear some other people’s stories, following their reasoning as they make choices and their experiences as they live with the consequences. I can then try to locate myself in this space of stories, reflecting on ways in which I am like and unlike those persons.
