A worksheet for the moral
mathematics of decision-making from America's original
prophet of self-improvement.
When the 29-year-old Charles Darwin
made his
endearing list of the pros and cons of marriage, he was
applying a now common decision-making technique pioneered
half a century earlier by another revolutionary mind on the
other side of the Atlantic: America's polymathic Founding
Father Benjamin Franklin (January 17,
1706-April 17, 1790).
Not since the
Stoics had there been so prolific a prophet of
self-improvement as Franklin. From the list of thirteen virtues
he penned when he was only twenty to his
staggering daily routine to his
clever trick for disarming haters, he continually devised
and applied various psychological frameworks to just about
every problem of existence. By middle age, Franklin's
reputation as a formidable sage of practical wisdom rendered
him on the receiving end of countless pleas for advice, many
of which he generously and thoughtfully obliged.
Benjamin Franklin (Portrait by
David Martin, 1767)
In the late summer of 1772, Franklin
received one such plea from a friend - the English scientist,
theologian, and liberal political theorist Joseph Priestley,
at the time working as minister of the famed Unitarian church
Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds. On Franklin's recommendation, the
Earl of Shelburne had offered the 39-year-old Priestley a
lucrative position as his general assistant, tasked with
managing his library and educating his children. Priestley
was torn - the appointment would grant him financial
stability for the first time in his life and would leave
ample time for his scientific investigations, but it would
require that he relinquish his ministry and move his family
to the Earl's estate near Bath. Unsure how to proceed, he
turned to Franklin for help in navigating the high-stakes
conundrum.
Joseph Priestley (Portrait by Ellen
Sharp, 1794)
Rather than telling his friend what
to choose, Franklin taught him how to choose. His letter,
cited in Steven Johnson's excellent book Farsighted: How We
Make the Decisions That Matter the Most
(public library),
outlined a sort of worksheet for the moral mathematics of
decision-making - the first known instance of a pros and cons
framework.
Franklin writes:
In the Affair of so much
Importance to you, wherein you ask my Advice, I cannot for
want of sufficient Premises, advise you what to determine,
but if you please I will tell you how.
When these difficult Cases occur,
they are difficult chiefly because while we have them under
Consideration all the Reasons pro and con are not present
to the Mind at the same time; but sometimes one Set present
themselves, and at other times another, the first being out
of Sight. Hence the various Purposes or Inclinations that
alternately prevail, and the Uncertainty that perplexes
us.
To get over this, my Way is, to
divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns,
writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then
during three or four Days Consideration I put down under
the different Heads short Hints of the different Motives
that at different Times occur to me for or against the
Measure. When I have thus got them all together in one
View, I endeavour to estimate their respective Weights; and
where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I
strike them both out: If I find a Reason pro equal to some
two Reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some
two Reasons con equal to some three Reasons pro, I strike
out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where
the Ballance lies; and if after a Day or two of farther
Consideration nothing new that is of Importance occurs on
either side, I come to a Determination
accordingly.
And tho' the Weight of Reasons
cannot be taken with the Precision of Algebraic Quantities,
yet when each is thus considered separately and
comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can
judge better, and am less likely to take a rash Step; and
in fact I have found great Advantage from this kind of
Equation, in what may be called Moral or Prudential
Algebra.
Priestley accepted the position,
which proved to be a turning point in the history of science.
Less than three years later, in the laboratory the Earl of
Shelburne built for him, he went on to conduct the famous
experiment in which he focused the sun's rays on a sample of
mercuric oxide through a burning glass and discovered oxygen,
O2 - a new kind of air Priestley marveled was
"five or six times better than common air for the purpose of
respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of
common atmospherical air."
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