The Paradox of Choice

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Humans live in a world in which every day they encounter numerous choices. The way they decide and the outcomes of their decisions define their lives. Their day to day life essentially revolves around the choices they make. As a whole, a community benefits or suffers from the outcomes of its choices. Freedom of choice is the grant to an individual or community to make its own choices out of free will and without restrictions (Pereboom,2003). This is essay will discuss that though freedom choice leads to variety in life, it does not necessarily guarantee satisfaction. It will also argue that although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less. It will then consider the implications of the paradox of choice for individuals in the market place and education, and for society in politics.

Human history is pock-marked with innumerable wars and revolutions. The cause for most of the revolutions has been the choice of freedom. The opportunity to live a life without physical, mental or emotional restrictions has been and still is of supreme importance to man. This has resulted in the most widely followed discipline of political governance: Democracy.

A democracy promotes equal rights for all its citizens and the equal opportunity to represent and choose for themselves in matters that affect their lives (Liddell, Robert Scott). The advent of democracy brought the opportunity of choice and the freedom of choosing according to ones wants and desires. This was considered as a stepping stone to a modern free world, and still holds true.

The freedom to choose and globalization helped in the establishment of modern super markets. A standard supermarket displays more than 30,000 items (Cross, 2000:55). Assu...

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...ibrary of Economics and Liberty (Econlib), (1980) Capital and Interest. London: Macmillan and Co.

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Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Demokratia, “A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus. Checked: March 29, 2011.

Herbert Simon (1956) Psychological Review.

Herbert Simon (1957) Models of Man, Social and Rational. New York, USA: Wiley.

Knowles (2006) The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable [online] available from: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Buridansass.html [Accessed on March 24, 2011]

Pereboom, D. (2003) Living without Free Will. Cambridge University Press.

Shashi Tharoor (2009) http://www.straitstimes.com/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=eece35b378aa0210VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=0162758920e39010VgnVCM1000000a35010aRCRD

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