Every now and then, life asks us a question with no easy answer. Which career should we pursue? Should we have children? Should we move to the coast or closer to our friends?
We gather information, read testimonials, and exhaustively research both options. One path seems better in some ways, the other seems better in others, and we find ourselves stuck between them. The best answer eludes us.
This is what the philosopher Ruth Chang calls a “hard choice.”
What makes these kinds of choices hard, Chang says, is not so much their content but their structure: They don’t fit into our standard trichotomy of value in decision-making. Usually, we compare two options using the criteria “better than,” “worse than,” or “equal to.” If there are better reasons to do X than Y, then the rational thing is to do X; meanwhile, if X and Y are equal, then it doesn’t matter which one we pick.
But hard choices defy this evaluative framework. They are cases where options are no better or worse than each other — yet, crucially, they are not equal to one another either.
Perhaps this seems strange. Our dilemma surely exists, we might think, because the options are equally desirable and we just can’t decide between them. But Chang suggests this is a mistake. When we’re stuck in a hard choice, the decision is difficult not because it involves equality, but because it involves difference. One option is no better or worse than the other, but they lead to different — often mutually exclusive — kinds of futures, and we cannot decide which kind of future we want.
When it comes to hard choices, Chang argues, the standard trichotomy of better than, worse than, and equal to is insufficient. To aid our thinking, she introduces a fourth dimension: parity. We should think of the options not as equal, Chang suggests, but as on a par.
When external reasons run out
Thinking in terms of parity can help us clarify what’s at stake in hard choices. Suppose a young person is stuck deciding between pursuing a career in forestry or law. They see the former as better in some ways (e.g., it provides more time outdoors, and they’d be helping preserve a valuable ecosystem), and law as better in others (e.g., it provides more financial security, and their parents prefer it).
They’ve researched the decision as much as they possibly can. They’ve garnered testimonials from foresters and lawyers. But still they can’t decide.
The young person might think, “If only I could see how my life would go in forestry and then in law, so I could compare the two and make a more informed choice about which is better.”
But Chang argues that even if the young person could do this, it wouldn’t tell them which option is better. They would simply bear witness to two different kinds of life, each with its own rewards and hardships, and encounter two different versions of themselves.
However, the difficult decision of which future to pick would remain.
This is the crux of hard choices: When options are on a par, we hunt for a definitive reason, given to us by the world, for picking one over the other — but no reason presents itself. The way isn’t signposted. External reasons have “run out.”
Rather than feel gloomy or anxious about this, Chang notes, we might actually see it as liberating: If external reasons have run out, then perhaps we can choose to be guided by internal ones.
Guided by internal reasons
If options are on a par, and no new external reason can tip the balance, then there is no “right” answer. There is no objectively “correct” path. That’s a good thing. The world would be boring if certain jobs, hobbies, dwellings, or futures were “the best” because then we’d all choose to do exactly the same things for exactly the same reasons.
We don’t live in that world, Chang reminds us. We live in a world of hard choices, where different paths appear to be on a par.
Through hard choices, we have an opportunity to live not for external reasons but for internal ones. We have a precious chance to inject our own agency into what we decide. We don’t opt for a particular path because it’s “better” (it’s not; it’s on a par), but because we’ve decided to commit to living a certain kind of life and to becoming a certain kind of person.
Being stuck in a hard choice is indeed hard, but it’s also a space where we actually get to exercise our freedom. When choices are on a par, we become the deciding factor. By putting our agency behind a particular option, we author our lives. Through our commitment to certain choices, we reveal who we are.
Chang thus thinks that we should approach hard choices not by haplessly attempting to determine a nonexistent best path, but by tackling questions of deep personal identity. Not “Which option is best?” but ”Who am I? Who do I want to be?”
“When our given reasons are on a par, as they are in hard choices, we have the normative power to create will-based reasons for ourselves to choose one alternative over the other,” Chang writes. “It is not facts beyond our agency that determine whether we should lead this kind of life rather than that, but us. In this way, we make ourselves who we are through the exercise of our normative powers in hard choices.”
How can we know what to commit to?
Committing to an option can be easier said than done, particularly if the stakes of our choice seem high. The young person doesn’t want to “waste” the early stages of their career by committing to the “wrong” field. The anxious lover doesn’t want to commit to the “wrong” person. The retiree doesn’t want to relocate to the “wrong” stretch of coastline.
A common response to hard choices, Chang notes, is to “drift.” We put off the decision, opt for the safest route, or follow the path of least resistance. The young person knows pursuing law has their family’s approval and presents more financial security. They don’t “commit” to pursuing law — they don’t put themselves behind the decision — but they drift into it anyway.
Drifting for a while is absolutely normal and necessary, Chang assures us, but if we find ourselves drifting through all our major decisions, we give up the chance to really express our existential freedom. We haven’t fully stood behind or for anything. Life has happened to us, decisions have been made for us, and we’ve allowed the world to write our story.
This is the hard lesson of hard choices: There are no shortcuts around the difficult introspective work needed to make up our minds.
If we feel ourselves drifting for a long time, we might reflect with brutal honesty on what we could put our agency behind and what our personhood could actually be for. Rather than trying to determine the correct choice by looking outside ourselves, we should look inside and ask: Who am I to be? What is the future version of myself I can sincerely stand behind? Who is the person I want to become?
Then, through hard choices, we can actually become that person.
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