Hobson's choice

Thomas Hobson

A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. As a person may refuse to take that option, the choice is therefore between taking the option or not; "take it or leave it". The phrase is said to originate with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England. To rotate the use of his horses, he offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all.

Origins

According to a plaque underneath a painting of Hobson donated to Cambridge Guildhall, Hobson had an extensive stable of some 40 horses. This gave the appearance to his customers of having their choice of mounts when in fact there was only one: Hobson required his customers to choose the horse in the stall closest to the door. This was to prevent the best horses always being chosen, which would have caused those horses to become overused.

An ultimatum game is a form of Hobson's choice.

Differences

Hobson's choice is different from:

• Dilemma: a choice between two or more options, none of which is attractive (including Sophie's choice, a choice between two persons or things that will result in the death or destruction of the person or thing not chosen)
• False dilemma: only two choices are considered, when in fact there are others
• Catch-22: a logical paradox arising from a situation in which an individual needs something that can only be acquired by not being in that very situation
• Morton's fork, and a double bind: choices yield equivalent, often undesirable, results.
• Blackmail and extortion: the choice between paying money (or some non-monetary good or deed) and suffering an unpleasant action

Early appearances in writing

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known written usage of this phrase is in The rustick's alarm to the Rabbies, written by Samuel Fisher in 1660:

"If in this Case there be no other (as the Proverb is) then Hobson's choice...which is, chuse whether you will have this or none."

It also appears in Joseph Addison's paper The Spectator (14 October 1712); and in Thomas Ward's 1688 poem "England's Reformation", not published until after Ward's death. Ward wrote:

"Where to elect there is but one, / 'Tis Hobson's choice—take that, or none."

Modern use

Hobson's choice is often misused to mean a false illusion of choice, but it is not a choice between two undesirable options, which is a Morton's fork. Such a choice between two options of nearly equal value is more properly called a dilemma. Hobson's choice is one between something or nothing.

On occasion, speakers and writers use the phrase "Hobbesian choice" instead of "Hobson's choice". They confuse the philosopher Thomas Hobbes with the relatively obscure Thomas Hobson.^[1][2][3][4] Notwithstanding that confused usage, the phrase, "Hobbesian choice" is historically incorrect.^[5][6][7]

Hobson's Choice is the title of a full length stage comedy in the public domain written by Harold Brighouse around 1890.

Henry Ford was said to have sold the Ford Model T with the famous Hobson's choice of "any color... so long as it is black".^[8]

In INS v. Chadha, Justice Byron White dissented and classified the Majority's decision to strike down the "one-house veto" as unconstitutional as leaving Congress with a Hobson's Choice. Congress may choose between "refrain[ing] from delegating the necessary authority, leaving itself with a hopeless task of writing laws with the requisite specificity to cover endless special circumstances across the entire policy landscape, or in the alternative, to abdicate its lawmaking function to the executive branch and independent agency." INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).

See, also, Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) ("[T]here was ample support for Blair's view that the Sherman Amendment, by putting municipalities to the Hobson's choice of keeping the peace or paying civil damages, attempted to impose obligations on municipalities by indirection that could not be imposed directly, thereby threatening to 'destroy the government of the states'").

In the American television series Early Edition (1996–2000), a man receives tomorrow's newspaper the day before it is published, and must decide which of its stories presents problems that he can solve, and at what cost to himself and others; the character's name is Gary Hobson.

See also

• Buridan's ass
• No-win situation
• Sophie's Choice
• Zugzwang

References