Suppose there is a hungry donkey with two stacks of hay in front of it. Both stacks have the same height, same distance, and same nutritional value. The donkey, being a rational animal, will attempt to make the best choice. But since the two choices are equal, the donkey has no incentive to select either choice. And thus, frozen with indecision, it starves.
This is Buridan’s Donkey, so-named after medieval thinker Jean Buridan (though the story of the tale runs back even more years than he existed). It is a joke in and of itself, it would kill any real donkey, not that it happens. The issue isn’t donkeys, though. The issue is us. The paradox is: Is too much rationality dangerous? Is finding the “perfect” option enough to make us unable to make any decision?
At one level, the donkey is representative of the weakness of reason by itself. Reason provides us to balance options, to count, to choose on the basis of facts. And what if the facts balance? Reason is stymied, and the outcome is stagnation. Without the power to act in uncertainty, the donkey dies, not of starvation, but of analysis.
Human beings starve to death between two piles of hay, but most of us go through the same crippling indecision daily. Think of the student who can’t make up his or her mind between two equally appropriate career choices. Or the individual perpetually weighing two almost identical phones, never even purchasing one. Or, worse yet, individuals who delay life-changing choices like marriage, moving, pursuing a dream, afraid of making the “wrong” one. In all cases, the absence of choice translates to missed opportunities, regret, and deep sadness.
The paradox also broaches the subject of the freedom value. We think there is no such thing as too much freedom, but Buridan’s Donkey demonstrates that too much freedom is paralyzing. Too much choice gives the appearance of control, but leaves us anxious and unable to act. In this sense, absolute freedom with no guidance appears to be a blessing in disguise, rather than a blessing.
To some philosophers, the donkey makes a mistake not in reason but in faith in reason. We human beings are not always rational beasts, we’re emotional, intuitive, imaginative. When reason fails us, the others pick up the pieces. We flip a coin, we follow a gut sense, we glance at what matters to us, not necessarily what makes sense. This “irrationality” saves us. It enables us to live instead of die in endless indecision.
Buridan’s Donkey forces us to think about balance, though. Reason is a wonderful tool, but without the courage to act in doubt, it will freeze us. We can never have all the possible outcomes. To wait for absolute certainty is to wait forever. Somewhere, we must take a leap, faith in lack, gut feeling, or mere necessity for movement.
Maybe that’s real morality. The universe doesn’t sort itself out in nice logic, but in the courage to get on with it in spite of the unknowable. In a universe of choices, the best thing to do is not always sensible, but the thing that still keeps us alive, moving, and evolving.
The question then is: given two equal opportunities, will you bet on being static, or choose, recognizing that life itself demands it to be flawless?