Hobson's choice

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This article is about an English-language expression. For other uses, see Hobson's choice (disambiguation).
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.

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 equivalent options, which is a Morton's fork, nor is it a choice between two undesirable options, which is a dilemma. Hobson's choice is one between something or nothing.

Differences

Hobson's choice is different from:

  • Dilemma: a choice between two or more options, none of which is attractive
  • 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

Malapropism

On occasion, speakers and writers use the phrase "Hobbesian choice" instead of "Hobson's choice", confusing the philosopher Thomas Hobbes with the relatively obscure Thomas Hobson.[1][2][3][4] (It's possible they may be confusing "Hobson's choice" with "Hobbesian trap", which refers to the trap into which a state falls when it attacks another out of fear.)[5] Notwithstanding that confused usage, the phrase "Hobbesian choice" is historically incorrect.[6][7][8]

Historical and cultural references

Hobson's Choice is the title of a full-length stage comedy written by Harold Brighouse in 1915. At the end of the play, the central character, Henry Horatio Hobson, formerly a wealthy, self-made businessman but now a sick and broken man, faces the unpalatable prospect of being looked after by his daughter Maggie and her husband Will Mossop, who used to be one of Hobson's underlings. His other daughters have refused to take him in, so he has no choice but to accept Maggie's offer which comes with the condition that he must surrender control of his entire business to her and Will. The play was adopted for being filmed several times: in 1920 in silent film by Percy Nash, in 1931 by Thomas Bentley, in 1953 by David Lean, and in 1983 in a TV movie.

Henry Ford was said to have offered the Ford Model T with the famous Hobson's choice of "any color...so long as it is black".[9]

The following examples are not Hobson's choices; they are dilemmas or double binds.

In The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham, Kitty Fane is described by Charles Townsend as facing Hobson's choice after she is given an ultimatum by her husband Walter to either accompany him to cholera-infested Mei-Tan-Fu, or convince her lover Townsend to divorce his wife Dorothy so he can marry Kitty, which Walter knows in hindsight is unlikely because the divorce will ruin Townsend's chances of political advancement.

In INS v. Chadha (1983), 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".

See also Monell v. City of New York 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.

In The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans and Fiona are said to be faced with a Hobson's Choice when they are trapped by the Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms in the Gorgonian Grotto: "We can wait until the mushrooms disappear, or we can find ourselves poisoned".[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hobbes, Thomas (1982) [1651]. Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. New York: Viking Press. 
  2. ↑ Dyzenhaus, David (2001). "Hobbes and the Legitimacy of Law". Law and Philosophy (20 (September)): 461–8. 
  3. ↑ Martinich, A. P. (1999). Hobbes: A Biography. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-49583-7. 
  4. ↑ Martin, Gary. "Hobson's Choice". The Phrase Finder. Retrieved 7 August 2010. 
  5. ↑ "The Hobbesian Trap". 21 September 2010. Retrieved 8 April 2012. 
  6. ↑ "Sunday Lexico-Neuroticism". boaltalk.blogspot.com. 27 July 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2010. 
  7. ↑ Levy, Jacob (10 June 2003). "The Volokh Conspiracy". volokh.com. Retrieved 7 August 2010. 
  8. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, Editor: "Amazingly, some writers have confused the obscure Thomas Hobson with his famous contemporary, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. The resulting malapropism is beautifully grotesque". Garner, Bryan (1995). A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 404–405. 
  9. ↑ Ford, Henry; Crowther, Samuel (2003) [1922]. "IV". My Life and Work. Kessinger. ISBN 978-0-7661-2774-6. 
  10. ↑ Snicket, Lemony (2004) The Grim Grotto, New York: HarperCollins Publishers p.145 - 147
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