1. Fill in the blanks with the correct word from those given below.

There are
four extra words. Put ONE of these words in each gap. You can only use a word
once.

AT AVERTING FIRSTLY GOOD HOWEVER IN LOAD MAKE

MAKES MECHANISMS MIND OPTIMAL POINTLESS PROBABLY QUESTIONS REALLY

SECONDLY SELF SIMPLY SO VIEW WHAT WHATSOVER WHO

DON’T OVERTHINK IT!

Is there a good and bad way to make a decision? Should it be through thinking a lot about it, or is that
(1) ______ and prevaricating, even dangerous? Should we (2) ______ rely on our emotions: our
instincts or even our impulses. Bence Nanay is a Belgian philosopher. He (3) _____ the control that we
think we have over the choices we (4) ______. He says that the rational (5) ______ has very little to do
with it.

Bence Nanay: You get two job offers. (6) _____, one of them is a sleepy college town, really boring, no
cultural like (7) _______, but excellent philosophy department, brilliant colleagues, amazing PhD
students. That’s one choice. The other choice, a job offer in one of the best cities in the world… terrible
philosophy department, huge teaching (8) ______, terrible colleagues. How are you going to decide? So
(9) ______ I’d do is that I imagine myself in a situation and imagine myself in a different situation. The
person (10) ____ is going to live in these scenarios is not my present self- I can imagine what my future
(11) ____ is going to be [like]. The whole question about what’s an (12) ______ decision is the wrong
question. Who your future self is going to be is going to depend on the decision that you are making.

DEVELOPING INSTINCT

In Nanay’s opinion, the decision (13) _____ the person rather than the person the decision! But are we
(14) _____ so easily manipulated? Scottish philosopher Barry C. Smith takes the (15) ____ that you can
lean to make better choices; (16) ___, by assessing the kind of decision it is.

Barry C. Smith: Having a long time to think about it is (17) ____ part of the problem, because you’re
going to do all these imaginative (18) ______. But I think to be a good decision-maker you have to have
several decision-making mechanisms, and they operate (19) ____ different speeds and different scales.
If you’re in a situation where you have to act very fast- to save someone else’s life or maybe to take
quick (20) ______ action-, you really just have to have a system that will simply take that decision for
you. You actually don’t want to be imaginatively projecting; it will get in the way and it will probably
slow you down.

1. 5. 9. 13. 17.
2. 6. 10. 14. 18.
3. 7. 11. 15. 19.
4. 8. 12. 16. 20.