Exclusion: For any end, e, if an agent cares about e, then (whether or not the agent intends to bring about or promote or sustain e) the agent is disposed to exclude courses of action that she believes to be incompatible with e from the range of courses of action that she will entertain as options in practical deliberation.
In what follows, I will use the phrase "the deliberative boundary established by an agent's concern with e" to refer to that deliberative boundary manifested in the disposition that Exclusion describes: the disposition to exclude precisely those courses of action which the agent believes to be incompatible with e from the range of courses of action which she will entertain as options in practical deliberation.
The truth of Exclusion is easily obscured, for the following reason: often, when an agent cares about some end, her concern will be manifested in intentions with respect to that end, and these intentions will themselves give rise to deliberative boundaries, evident in corresponding dispositions to exclude courses of action which lie beyond these boundaries.
Suppose, to revert to the example, that I had no disposition, however defeasible, to exclude from my deliberation courses of action which aided in the destruction of Tibetan culture.
In some cases, the information that relates to the evaluation criteria for two or more courses of action would rate the same value on an independent scale.
5 each for courses of action 1 and 2, It is important to use this method so that all criteria carry the same proportion of scoring in relation to the entire analysis.
As the number of courses of actions increases and they are compared using more evaluation criteria, the decision process becomes even more useful in massaging multiple pieces of data into a manageable and understandable form.
A third set refers to the activity of designing courses of action to achieve goals:
The criterion of choice in originative decisions is direct preference for one set of consequences in comparison with the consequences of other courses of action.
On the other hand, in an originative decision, courses of action are compared with each other, so there must always be at least two courses.
Two courses of action are proposed and some consequences of these courses are noted.
For all courses of action classified as selecting or comparing options, the coders identified the type of analytical strategies invoked by the decision makers.
We expected that the majority of the courses of action linked to decision points would be directed at resolving whatever difficulty had arisen, but this was not the case.
Of the 78 courses of action studied, 95% were considered to be recognized, 4% were considered to be selected from multiple options, and 1% were novel actions.
By considering all of the factors affecting the situation, determining and analyzing feasible sequences of action, and reviewing the estimates of support provided by supervisors and commodity managers, administrators can decide on the best
courses of action to take to accomplish their stated objectives.
