PAUL WEIRICH A DECISION MAKER'S OPTIONS (Received 9 October, 1982) One of the goals of rational decision making is to adopt an option whose expected utility is at least as great as the expected utilities of other options. In explications of this goal, a decision maker's options are usually taken as the future actions that he can perform, x This seems odd since a decision maker's immediate alternatives at the time of decision are the decisions that he can make at the time. Here I will argue that in the goal to maximize expected utility, options should be taken as possible decisions rather than as possible actions, that is, as possible decisions to perform actions rather than as possible actions that might be decided upon. 2 Some people who prefer taking options as possible actions may imagine that taking options as possible decisions quickly leads to reductio. They may think that making a decision is deciding upon an option. Hence, if options are possible decisions, every decision is a decision to make some possible decision. Accordingly, executing a decision results in another decision, which, if executed, results in another decision, ad infinitum. However this argument rests on a narrow construal of the proposal to take options as possible decisions. It assumes that making a decision is deciding upon an option. But this assumption is part and parcel of the view that options are possible actions. If that view about options is replaced by the view that options are possible decisions, then this assumption about making a decision has to be revised as well. Indeed, part of our proposal will be that making a decision is realizing an option. Accordingly, with possible decisions as options, making a decision is realizing a possible decision to perform some action, i.e., simply deciding to perform the action. Hence our proposal does not entail that every decision is a decision to make some possible decision, and the regress noted above is avoided. Most theorists who take options as possible actions have, however, probably not been misled by a narrow construal of the proposal that options are possible decisions. I suspect that they either (a) have thought that it does Philosophical Studies 44 (1983) 175-186. 0031-8116/83/0442-0175501.20 (~ 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.