Is the care sector incompatible with profit motives? — Some people take a dim view of profit. It evokes images of fat, top-hatted men raking it in. In the UK, that concept cannot provoke more outrage than if it is linked to the National Health Service (NHS), an institution only marginally less sacred than the Church of England. If…

UK employers face a dilemma when the government decrees an extra bank holiday. Granting it costs money, but not granting it may have consequences too. — In Britain, public holidays are ‘bank holidays’, a relic from the days when the Bank of England used to close for business on certain saints’ days. There used to be as many as forty, but nowadays, the number is a more modest eight — unless, that is, the government ‘grants’…

Last week, an old lady died. Her passing has been dominating the headlines for days, and tens of millions of people around the world took notice and were moved to respond. Why is the death of someone we never met and who doesn’t know us such a momentous event? — The decease of Queen Elizabeth II, aged 96 and in less than perfect health, was hardly a great surprise. If anything, it was the fact that she was still alive at such an advanced age that was unusual. Nonetheless, her death triggered a remarkable reaction in millions of people, not…

Despite the criticism it attracts (which is mostly aimed at a caricature or at inappropriate application), utilitarian thinking is a valid guide to decision making. But while it can certainly handle pleasure and pain, it does have its limits and, perhaps surprisingly, cannot really be used on its own. — (This is the final part of 3 linked articles — here are the first and the second.) Here is a simple question: what would you enjoy more, discovering in your jeans, as they come clean out of the washing machine, the unusable remains of a £20 (or equivalent) banknote that…

Utilitarianism receives a great deal of criticism. Is it a useless tool for making decisions, or are the detractors overstating their case? — (Part I is here.) Imagine a business — say, a bakery — that has an opportunity to expand its production. Their customers want to buy both more bread and more pies. There is unused space at their premises, but it is not large enough to accommodate both bread and pastry…

Utilitarianism is a philosophy to guide the choices we make, in which these should be judged on their consequences, against a requirement of maximizing happiness and well-being (or minimizing harm) for all affected individuals. Is this approach a realistic and useful, or fundamentally unfit for purpose? Our days are filled…

In which the author is reminded of the importance of questioning one’s intuitions — even if well-informed — and assumptions, and of what ultimately is behind many of our decisions — Without a pandemic throwing a spanner in the works, we were ready for our annual summer trip to our native lands, and once again, your correspondent could not help himself making a few behavioural observations. When it comes to car parking, time is money… or is it?

What we do not care about does not affect us. That gives us a kind of superpower to be happier, which we don’t always use as much as we could — An unexpected bonus, the person we want to spend the rest of our life with saying ‘yes’, the soccer team we support winning the title, a stranger letting us join an interminable traffic queue with a smile — these are some of the many things that make us feel good…

Targets can influence our behaviour in a beneficial way, by providing guidance and giving us motivation. But not all targets are equally effective — It may be hard to believe nowadays, when we can stream any radio programme or music by any artists to a device that resides in our pocket, but when I was about 12, I dreamt of having my own transistor radio. Literally. Thankfully, at the time I was growing out…