Making Choices: Cost-Benefit Analysis

15 July 2023

This is an experiment.  I have a decision to make, three ideas to consider, and three tools: philosophy, psychology, and three-score years experience on Earth.  Why should you care?  You might care because of the ways philosophy, psychology, and experience might help with decisions you’re considering.  Or you may care because you find human processes interesting—or you may wish to skip reading this blog.  All are choices you can make.

The decision is  whether to write a book on addiction or complete a Ph. D. on the human soul.

The three ideas come from the Daily Stoic and an Israeli General, Herzl Halevi, who has used philosophy as a practical decision-making tool since his university years.  His emphasis is on priorities, balance, and clarity (Holiday & Hanselman, 2016, p. xx).

The three tools: philosophy, psychology, and life-experience.  Philosophy, from Greek, is philo (love of) sophia (wisdom).  It consists of five parts: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and politics.  Psychology, also from Greek, is psuche (soul) and logos (accounting for which, in another tense, is ology, the study of).  Experience is good, bad, and indifferent depending on each person and each subject under consideration.

I have read thinkers who insist that getting the question right is the most important part of being able to solve it.  I believe those people would appreciate Halevi’s points: priorities, balance, but mostly clarity.  Clarity is key.  As a therapist I always know—instantly—when clarity appears.  But that’s a misstatement, for clarity appears secondly, after confusion disappears.  In that moment of the simpler, clean vision, my shoulders relax, I laugh or smile, my gut says Yes! and I know we’re onto something important. 

Unfortunately, after all of that, I don’t believe I’ll achieve clarity regarding this decision.  Writing that last sentence brings up an important but rarely stated criterion.  I believe the philosophy professor, at U Guelph, with whom I had the greatest number of courses, was Dr. Dorter.  By the time I got there (2015), he was already emeritus (or retired) but returned for a few victory laps.  I disagreed with many things he said, he disagreed with most things I said, but he knew his philosophy, and I respect knowledge.  After answering a student’s question, Dr. Dorter would often ask, Is that a satisfying answer?  That sense of satisfaction is what I’m talking about—that bodily sense that, yes, that works.  I don’t think we get that with some of our bigger questions until we’ve committed to a decision—something to which we’ll return. 

So, regarding getting the question right, one issue is whether or not this is an either/or or a both/and question.  (Short answer: it’s an either/or because there’s NO WAY I have the time to do a book and a Ph. D.—unless...the Ph. D. is the background work for the book—something I might consider.)

And consider it, I did. And the answer began to emerge: as committed as I am to treating addiction, I am more committed to understanding human being.  So...in terms of Halevi’s three ideas, you have to first be human before you can become addicted to a subtance or behaviour.  What I’m not stating, is that in my own hierarchy of values (again, Halevi’s priorities), eudaimonia is my highest priority, with understandng right after it.  (Eudaimonia is the Greek word for happiness but with fewer giddy conotations, as it can be tranlated, literally, as well-spirited.)  More plainly, I will know more about addiction by studying the constituents of the human soul than I will know about the constituents of the human soul by studying addiction.  But, once written, the truth of the statement seems less obvious.

And for those interested, we’re now engaging metaphysics and epistemology.  Metaphysics is the study of the fundamental nature of reality. By identifying the soul, addiction, and eudaimonia, I have assumed that you, dear reader, understand and agree (at least approximately) that these things exist, are knowable (epistemology), and can be studied.  While that may seem obvious (another huge issue in philosophy) there are legions of thinkers who would argue against the soul, eudaimonia, and addiction being knowable, probably in that order.  I would counter that argument by asking what it is we’re denying the existence of—if it has a name, surely it has some correlates in reality?

Let’s move to the tools, the most relevant being a Cost-Benefit Analsysis (CBA, SMART Recovery Handbook, p. 19).  In the preamble, it is assumed that the I’ve identified 1) my values, and 2) what I want my future to look like.  Yes, to the first, kinda, to the second.  This is an excellent question not yet considered.  If a Ph. D. is undertaken, what will the days of those years look like?  Well, I’ve already committed to delivering psychotherapy on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for roughly 48 weeks a year.  I plan to continue facilitating the two SMART meetings, and I hope my homelife will remain roughly what it is and has been for nearly half a century (my wife, good health, a small home, children, pets...). 

The third assumption, is that I’ve created a plan to get me where I’m going.  Yes, regarding the ability to practice psychotherapy, kinda, with respect to the next chapter—in fact, I would say this blog is outlining one of the steps in making that plan. The final caveat, included in SMART Recovery, is to be aware of the difference between short-term thinking (urge relief, instant gratification) versus long-term thinking (value- and pupose-driven self-actualization).  Again, just writing that sentence gives me clarity.  And it’s that third word: purpose.  Why am I pursuing a book on addiction or, essentially, the research for another book on the nature of the human soul?  (I just got that smile and that sense of a satisfying resolution.)

Both projects are motivated by a desire to organize and share knowledge but the second one, the Ph. D., is to organize, share, and expand or test understandings of the psycho-philosophically derived dimensions of the human soul, a project I began in my final undergraduate philosophy course, and continued in my last Master’s paper—both papers providing clues toward an answer that satisfies.  As such, it has become clear to me that, at this point in time, with rose-coloured glasses firmly affixed to my nose, the decision to be tested concerns the costs/benefits of undertaking the Ph. D.  Let’s do the exercise.

I did not expect to arrive at a destination.  This process happened precisely as it’s written.  I felt (and feel) that this is a bit self-indulgent—for a blog—but hope that, as intended, it makes clearer one way to approach the process of taking difficult life decisions.  I will also provide the qualifier I learned in economics classes over 40 years ago: ceteris paribus: this decision is good only so long as all factors in the equation remain as understood above!  Thanks for bearing with me.

Dan Chalykoff is (finally!) a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying).  He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes.  He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery.  Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.

References

Hardin, R. (Ed.). (2013). SMART Recovery handbook: Tools and strategies to help you on your recovery journey. Third Edition, Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network.

Holiday, R. & Hanselman, S. (2016). The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living.  Portfolio/Penguin.