Slote, Michael - The Tanner Lectures on Human Values

66 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Tanner</strong> <strong>Lectures</strong> on Human Values
But until and unless that happens, we should recognize - something
philosophers have not previously noticed or admitted -
that the common-sense understanding of our own lives leaves a
definite recognizable place for occasional, perhaps even frequent,
satisficing moderation. For in fact the phenomenon of moderation
is not limited to fairy-tale examples, though I believe such examples
allow one to see certain issues large enough and in sufficient
isolation as to make it easier to recognize the phenomenon of
moderation in the more muddied waters of everyday life. Even
the example of the person selling a house and moving to a new
location need be altered only in minor ways in order to turn it
from an example of not seeking the best for oneself into an example
of actually rejecting the expectable better for the expectable
good enough.
Imagine, for instance, that the person selling the house has an
agent and that the agent has received a firm bid on the house that
falls within the range the seller considers good enough. <strong>The</strong> agent
tells the prospective buyer that it may take him three or four days
to get in touch with the seller because he believes the latter is
temporarily out of town; the buyer says he is in no hurry; but in
fact the seller has not gone away and the agent conveys the bid to
him on the same day it is made. <strong>The</strong> seller then tells the agent to
let the prospective buyer know that his offer is acceptable, but the
agent, who we may assume is no satisficer, tells the seller that he
really ought to wait a few days before accepting the offer that has
been made. After all, he says, the offer is firm, and if we wait a
few days before telling the prospective buyer that you agree to his
terms, a better offer may come in.
Now in the circumstances as I have described them, the seller’s
net expectable utility is greater if he waits -we
are assuming that
the offer already made is firm and that there is no reason to worry
that the person who has made the offer may get cold feet, since the
latter doesn’t expect his offer to be received for a couple of days.
Yet the seller may tell the real estate agent to convey his accep-