CHAPTER 3.

THE LOGIC OF HEURISTIC DECISION MAKINGt*

The task of a comprehensive theory of action is to describe or prescribe the

occasions for action, the alternative courses of action (or the means of
discovering them), and the choice among action alternatives. The task of a
comprehensive logic of action is to describe or prescribe the rules that govern
reasoning ab out the occasions for action, the discovery of action alternatives,
and the choice of action.
Approaches to the theory of action have often taken their starting point in
the modalities of common language: in the meanings of 'ought' and 'must'
and 'can.'l But because common language is complex, flexible, and imprecise,
travellers on this path have encountered formidable difficulties. To the best
of my knowledge, no theory based on modalities has been developed
sufficiently far to serve as a working tool for a practitioner in a field of action
such as engineering or management science.
A different starting point is to ask what the practitioners actually do. How
does an inventory manager decide when to reorder stock? How does an
engineer design an electric motor? How does a production scheduler choose
the appropriate factory employment level for the current and future months?
These practitioners reason and reason to action - be it well or badly. Perhaps
we shall find that they have already forged satisfactory logics of norm and
action. Or perhaps, on analyzing their practice, we shall discover that the
ordinary predicate calculus of declarative discourse is adequate to their
purposes. By examining their reasonings, we shall perhaps be relieved entirely
of the task of constructing a new logic of norm and action; at worst, we shall
have to make explicit what is implicit in practice, correct it, and improve it.
In any event, we may hope to find that a large part of the work has already
been done for us.
For these reasons I have found the logic used by professional decision
makers an excellent starting point for inquiry into the requirements of
imperative and deontic logic. Particularly useful for the task are areas of
practice where the decision-making process has been imbedded in formal

[tRescher (ed.), The Logic of Decision and Action, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1967, pp. 1-20].

H. A. Simon, Models of Discovery

© D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1977
 THE LOGIC OF HEURISTIC DECISION MAKING 155

models: normative economics, statistical decision theory, management

science, computer programming, operations research, and certain areas of
modem engineering design.
In a previous paper, I reported the results of such an inquiry, concerned in
the main with schemes for choosing among given action alternatives. 2 The
central conclusion reached in that paper is that there is no need for a special
'logic of imperatives' or 'logic of action'; the basis for the conclusion is that
the practitioners in the fields examined clearly get along very well without
one.

No different brand of logic is used in normative economics from that used in positive
economics. On the contrary, the logic employed is the standard logic of declarative
statements.
Imperatives enter the normative systems through rules of correspondence that permit
commands to be converted into existential statements, and existential statements into
commands. The conversion process always takes place in the context of a complete
model, with the command variables and environmental variables designated, the state of
knowledge about the latter specified, and the causal relations among variables
determined. In such a context, commands that bind one or more of the command
variables can be converted to the corresponding declarative statements; while declarative
statements that can be solved for command variables, but are not identities in those
variables, can be converted to commands by binding the command.variables with the
command operator.'

The best-developed formal models of the decision process - those examined

in Part 1 of my previous paper - are concerned largely with choice among
given alternatives; the alternatives of action themselves are assumed to be
known at the outset. In Part 2 of that paper, I explored in a preliminary
fashion -the question of whether the reasoning involved in designing possible
courses of action could also be subsumed under the standard predicate
calculus of declarative statements. Again, the tentative answer appeared to be
affirmative. I should like to pursue that question here to a more definite
conclusion, and to extend the inquiry, as well, to the reasoning involved in
determining the occasions for action. The method, again, will be to point to
what sophisticated practitioners actually do: to show that they reason
rigorously about action without needing a special logic of action.

1. PHASES OF DECISION

The decision models of classical economics do not recognize the need either
to identify the occasions of action or to devise courses of action. These
models presuppose that there is a well-defined criterion for choosing among