Decision Analysis from a Neo-Calvinist Point of View [book chapter]

Abstract

By Calvinist point of view, I refer to analysis focused on assessing the diagnostic significance of policy decisions, rather than establishing the direct consequences of decisions. Diagnostic significance refers to information revealed by an irrevocable act, information about some underlying collective value or belief. Decisions, especially those that break with precedent, can expose the tradeoffs between competing values, tradeoffs that society tacitly endorses. In these situations, the role of analysis might be not so much to recommend a course of action, but to clarify what is at stake, the “diagnostic risk” as it were, created by the choice.