How Satisficers Get Away with Murder

Traditional Consequentialism is based on a demanding principle of impartial maximization. Michael Slote's 'Satisficing Consequentialism' aims to reduce the demands of Consequentialism, by no longer requiring us to bring about the best possible outcome. This paper presents a new objection to Satisficing Consequentialism. We begin with a simple thought experiment, in which an agent must choose whether to save the lives of ten innocent people by using a sand bag or by killing an innocent person. The main aim of the paper is to demonstrate that, if it is to avoid making unreasonable demands, Satisficing Consequentialism must allow such an agent to kill. It is argued that this result is much more counter-intuitive than the fact that Maximizing Consequentialism permits agents to kill in order to produce the best consequences. The conclusion is that Satisficing Consequentialism is not an acceptable moral theory.     

The Decision Making Tendency Inventory: A new measure to assess maximizing,satisficing, and minimizing

We introduce the Decision Making Tendency Inventory (DMTI), a new scale for measuring the decision-making tendencies to maximize, to satisfice, and to minimize. The scale has promising psychometric properties. Our findings show that the revealed tendencies are independent from each other and from the specific decision-making domain. Each factor is differently related to a set of indices of well-being and functioning, suggesting intriguing considerations regarding the distinctive characteristics of maximizing, satisficing, and minimizing. The DMTI extends previous research on maximizing and might contribute to explain the inconsistent results in the literature. Directions for future research are suggested.