Frame

There is a critical flaw in my argument yesterday that may skip your eyes.

As Daniel Kahneman says, the decision really depends on how you phrase the question.

You see? Let’s imagine we ask a cancer patient the following question: Would you accept a treatment that would increase the maximal suffering for a while, have no effect on the terminal symptoms, and could slightly prolong your survival? If we use the “peak-and-end” model described yesterday to assess value, the expected answer would be NO.

But, we certainly agree that’s not the answer in real life.

Why? Because we are trapped in the wrong frame. If we begin by asking this: Would you accept a treatment that neither affects your maximal nor final pleasure, but could slightly prolong your survival? We could reply a logical YES.