later today. So long as I don't act on that judgement as long, say, as I stay in my room typing this paper my mere judgement leads to no action, no choice. I have not committed myself to anything. In the terms we are using here, I have made no decision.
If I am going out (itself the consequence, perhaps, of a decision), my judgement of the weather begins to have consequences. If my judgement is "cool and breezy," and I dressed accordingly, I will face the consequences of my decision. If I decided wrongly and it turns hot and muggy I will pay the price by sweltering. It is this element of choice that is at the heart of the decision maker's role. In the case of executive decision makers, their choices effect not just themselves, but many (perhaps millions) of other people.
Decisions are not all of the same type. A decision may take the form of a selection among alternatives: "two from Column A and two from Column B ..." It may be a ranking of a particular alternative: "on a one to ten scale ..." (In either case, again, simply making the j
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