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Philosophical Frameworks that Inform Your Decisions (Without You Even Knowing It)

Summary

This episode explores the philosophical frameworks that unconsciously shape our decision-making processes, particularly in professional contexts. The host introduces three key philosophical lenses: ontology (concerned with what something intrinsically is), teleology (focused on purpose or outcomes), and dynamism (which considers changing contexts and environments). These frameworks help explain why intelligent people can disagree even when presented with the same data, as they approach decisions from different foundational perspectives.

The discussion centers on the word “should” and how it implies value judgments about decisions. The host explains that our brains don’t fundamentally differentiate between “should” and “want”—what we determine we should do incorporates what we want to do. By understanding these philosophical frameworks, we can become more intentional in our decision-making rather than relying on intuition or impulse.

Practical applications are explored through career and business examples. For instance, someone who loses their job as a senior engineer might struggle with ontological identity (“what am I?”) while needing to consider teleological purpose (“what should my career accomplish?”) within a dynamic reality. Similarly, a startup might pivot from selling solar installations to providing data services by examining what they’re ontologically good at and redefining their teleological purpose in response to market dynamics.

The episode emphasizes that no single framework is superior—all three are valuable tools that provide different insights. By recognizing which philosophical lens we’re applying (often unconsciously), we can identify hidden assumptions, increase our decision-making flexibility, and find better pathways to our “should” criteria. The goal isn’t necessarily to make better decisions directly but to understand the frameworks that inform how we evaluate what constitutes a good decision.

Recommendations

Tools

  • Wix Studio — A developer-first website building platform that allows development in a VS Code-based IDE or locally via GitHub, with AI code assistance and automatically maintained infrastructure. Mentioned as a sponsor and used as an example of updating ontological definitions of website builders.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to decision-making disagreements among intelligent people — The episode opens by noting that intelligent people often disagree even when presented with the same data, because much of our work involves predicting an uncertain future. The host introduces the concept of “should” as a value-laden term that implies desirable versus undesirable decisions. Today’s episode will explore philosophical frameworks that help define our “should” criteria.
  • 00:04:19 — Sponsor segment: Wix Studio website builder — A sponsored segment promoting Wix Studio as a developer-first website building platform. The host notes that our preconceptions about website builders represent an ontological definition that may need updating. Wix Studio offers VS Code-based IDE, GitHub integration, AI code assistance, and automatically maintained infrastructure.
  • 00:08:35 — Introducing three philosophical frameworks for decision-making — The host introduces three philosophical frameworks: ontology (what something intrinsically is), teleology (purpose or outcomes), and dynamism (changing contexts). These frameworks help us understand how we determine what we “should” do in various situations, from parenting to career decisions to business strategy.
  • 00:11:15 — Detailed explanation of ontology, teleology, and dynamism — Ontology examines the intrinsic characteristics of something—what it is composed of. Teleology focuses on purpose or outcomes—what something produces or aims to accomplish. Dynamism considers changing environments and contexts. The host uses the example of a grammar feedback team to illustrate how each framework would analyze the same situation differently.
  • 00:15:30 — Applying frameworks to career and personal development — The frameworks are applied to career development examples. Someone who loses a senior engineering role might struggle with ontological identity (“what am I?”) while needing to consider teleological purpose within a dynamic reality. Alternatively, one could use teleology to set clear career outcomes while being willing to change ontological aspects like skills or location.
  • 00:18:52 — Business applications and startup pivoting examples — The frameworks are applied to business decisions, using a solar startup example. A failing solar installation business might pivot to providing data services by examining what they’re ontologically good at (surfacing reliable solar data) and redefining their teleological purpose in response to market dynamics. This illustrates how startups often pivot by changing their purpose to leverage existing strengths.
  • 00:22:14 — Conclusion: Flexibility and assumptions in decision-making — The host concludes that understanding these frameworks won’t necessarily lead to better decisions directly but will help recognize hidden assumptions and increase decision-making flexibility. By putting frameworks around our assumptions, we can change or remove them to find better pathways to our “should” criteria. The episode ends with a call to action for reviews and subscriptions.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2025-02-17T08:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:24:43

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you’ve been doing this job for very long at all, you know that intelligent people disagree.

[00:00:15] This isn’t true just in politics, it’s not true just at the holiday meal table.

[00:00:25] It’s true in our professional lives, and it’s even true when we have loads of data, loads

[00:00:32] of information to inform us, where we could reconstruct all of the relevant information

[00:00:40] out of that data, we still can have strong disagreements.

[00:00:46] Some of this is because of one of the fundamental assertions that we make on this podcast, that

[00:00:52] the vast majority of our work is about trying to predict some future.

[00:00:58] If any of us had the ability to predict the future, we probably wouldn’t really need to

[00:01:02] work very much at all, or at least a lot of our work would be diminished.

[00:01:09] But of course, we can’t predict the future.

[00:01:11] So much of our work is about trying to shape the future, shape the future and shape it

[00:01:19] in a way that is in alignment with the way that the future is already shaping itself.

[00:01:25] In other words, we have external and internal influence.

[00:01:30] The external influences are the ones we can’t really control, and the internal influences

[00:01:35] are the ones that we can.

[00:01:37] And today we’re going to talk about a little bit of light armchair philosophy to help you

[00:01:44] navigate conversations about what should happen next.

[00:01:49] What should we do as a team, as a company, as a family, or even just yourself?

[00:01:57] What should my next decision be?

[00:02:01] And the critical term here that I want you to focus on is the word should.

[00:02:07] You’ve probably mentioned this on the show before, but should has an implication.

[00:02:13] It implies that there is some value to your decision.

[00:02:18] That is, there is a decision that you could make or there’s some number of decisions,

[00:02:24] perhaps an infinite number of decisions that you could make that would lean towards you

[00:02:30] shouldn’t, that would lean towards undesirable.

[00:02:34] And then there are another infinite number of decisions, you know, obviously not practically

[00:02:40] but there’s a large number of decisions that you can make that would lean towards desirable,

[00:02:45] that would lean towards something that whoever is defining desirable would choose.

[00:02:52] And so today’s episode is entirely about the philosophy of defining that should criteria.

[00:03:02] How do we determine where we land on should?

[00:03:06] It’s important to note that all of these frameworks, all of this philosophy we’re going

[00:03:11] to talk about today only exists because of the uncertainty of the future, right?

[00:03:19] And so the dealing with that reality is what these philosophies aim to accomplish.

[00:03:28] Before we go any deeper, I do want to mention that we are going to tie this back to practical

[00:03:33] advice as we go.

[00:03:34] So don’t tune out.

[00:03:36] This is not going to be all heads in the clouds kind of stuff.

[00:03:41] We’re going to tie this back to how it might actually play out.

[00:03:45] Let’s say if you’re an engineering manager on your team, this kind of mental model is

[00:03:51] practically relevant to you.

[00:03:52] So this isn’t a philosophy podcast.

[00:03:57] We talk about philosophy in light of how it can impact your engineering, either your engineering

[00:04:03] career or your engineering leadership career.

[00:04:05] I want to make these kind of bigger concepts that otherwise maybe you wouldn’t be engaging

[00:04:10] very often.

[00:04:11] I want to bring those into a more practical perspective as kind of a warm up.

[00:04:19] Before we talk about today’s sponsor, I want you to think about how you determine what

[00:04:23] you should do.

[00:04:26] For example, how did you determine that you should listen to this podcast, right?

[00:04:34] That this is how you should spend your time.

[00:04:38] Many people are probably going to answer that.

[00:04:40] It’s not necessarily what I should be doing, but it’s what I wanted to do.

[00:04:44] I want to encourage you to recognize that your brain does not really differentiate between

[00:04:52] should and want.

[00:04:57] What you determine as what you should do is, as far as your brain is concerned, incorporating

[00:05:05] what you want to do.

[00:05:09] You never are going to do something that you have calculated you shouldn’t do.

[00:05:16] That’s kind of a special definition of should in this case.

[00:05:19] There are things that we do that we know we shouldn’t do by some particular decision

[00:05:27] making algorithm, but our decision making algorithm had more information.

[00:05:33] It had more inputs.

[00:05:35] Maybe our impulses and some other bits of information or emotion were brought into that

[00:05:43] should that our brains ultimately made the decision on.

[00:05:50] We’re not going to talk through all of those complexities.

[00:05:53] We’re going to talk about a really specific narrow type of should in today’s episode,

[00:05:58] a narrow set of philosophies that can help inform more of those intentional decision

[00:06:07] making, as we’ll call it, rather than trying to describe behavior.

[00:06:13] That’s not really what we’re trying to do in this episode.

[00:06:16] Instead, I want to give you tools for decision making.

[00:06:20] These philosophies or philosophical frameworks will help you understand how to make those

[00:06:25] intentional decisions less intuitively or less impulsively.

[00:06:29] And instead, you’ll be a bit more equipped for those decisions.

[00:06:33] We’re going to talk about a sponsor and then we’re going to come back and talk about these

[00:06:37] three different decision philosophies.

[00:06:46] One of the things we’re going to talk about in today’s episode is the importance of being

[00:06:54] able to update your thinking, being able to adapt your thinking to new realities.

[00:07:00] Now, when I say website builder, unless you’ve been listening to this podcast for the past

[00:07:05] couple of months, you’re probably immediately are thinking limited control.

[00:07:10] You probably have this kind of mental model of what a website builder is.

[00:07:15] Maybe yours is like mine was where I thought of the early days of web development, where

[00:07:20] I was slicing up Photoshop files or something like that.

[00:07:24] How about a node based builder that lets you add full stack JavaScript code to any site

[00:07:30] that you own?

[00:07:31] Well, with Wix Studio, you can spend less time on UI coding, hosting and security and

[00:07:36] more on the custom logic and functionalities that truly matter.

[00:07:40] And it’s not going to be that big code mess that was spit out by those old website builders

[00:07:46] that you’re probably remembering.

[00:07:47] Instead, you get to develop in your preferred coding environment online in a VS code based

[00:07:52] IDE or locally through a GitHub integration.

[00:07:55] Neither way with Wix Studio, you’re deploying in a click.

[00:07:59] You can extend and replace hundreds of powerful business solutions and custom built features

[00:08:03] with APIs and integrations.

[00:08:05] And when you need to speed things up, Wix Studio’s AI assistant is on hand to generate

[00:08:10] tailored code snippets, troubleshoot bugs and retrieve product answers in seconds.

[00:08:15] All of that is neatly wrapped up in an automatically maintained infrastructure for total peace of

[00:08:20] mind.

[00:08:21] Work in a developer first ecosystem.

[00:08:22] Head over to wixstudio.com.

[00:08:24] That’s w-i-x-studio.com.

[00:08:27] Thanks again to Wix for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer Team.

[00:08:35] We’re talking about decision making philosophies.

[00:08:42] How do we decide what we should do?

[00:08:46] Should is a word that many times it comes up in moral discussions.

[00:08:53] How should we behave?

[00:08:56] If you are a parent, then you have this conversation with your child.

[00:09:00] You shouldn’t do that.

[00:09:02] Or you should go and apologize to your friend.

[00:09:09] If you’re like me, you may have experienced your child coming back to you and saying,

[00:09:15] well, why?

[00:09:17] Why should I do that?

[00:09:19] The answer to that question is dependent on your philosophy.

[00:09:24] That’s what we’re talking about.

[00:09:26] How do you determine these shoulds?

[00:09:27] We’re going to shy away a little bit from moralism or moral discussions here because

[00:09:33] in most of the cases that you’re going to face, especially if it’s within a project

[00:09:39] or something like that, and you’re probably not going to be facing those, but that certainly

[00:09:44] is not out of bounds for discussion when it comes to your career.

[00:09:49] Should I join this company or not is going to depend on your framework for how you determine

[00:09:55] what you should or shouldn’t do.

[00:09:57] But largely speaking, and this is going to dumb down a lot of our decision-making concerns, but

[00:10:06] there are some kind of practical positions that you can take when you’re looking at

[00:10:13] what you should or shouldn’t do.

[00:10:16] And more specifically, when you’re thinking about the future of a given entity,

[00:10:25] an entity in this case might be you in your career, an entity might be a team, a company,

[00:10:32] maybe a report of yours, or maybe it’s a project.

[00:10:36] Maybe it’s a service that you build.

[00:10:39] It could be any particular thing.

[00:10:41] You’re trying to decide what is the future of this thing.

[00:10:44] What should we do with this thing?

[00:10:46] Or what should we do with this person or this group of people?

[00:10:50] Think about it as kind of a noun.

[00:10:53] What is the ultimate timeline for this?

[00:10:57] So we’re going to talk about these three philosophies.

[00:10:59] Philosophy number one, it’s called ontology.

[00:11:03] Philosophy number two is teleology or sometimes teleology.

[00:11:07] We’re going to use teleology.

[00:11:09] And philosophy number three is dynamism.

[00:11:13] Dynamism, all right.

[00:11:15] Ontology is concerned with what a thing intrinsically is.

[00:11:21] The characteristics of that thing, if you were to look at it on its own in isolation,

[00:11:28] what is it?

[00:11:29] What is it composed of?

[00:11:33] Teleology is concerned with what is the purpose of the thing

[00:11:38] or what is the outcome that the thing produces, right?

[00:11:43] Teleology is in some ways kind of the balance to ontology.

[00:11:51] And you can arrive at or find out about ontology through teleology, right?

[00:11:59] Because if you’re looking at how something is used and in what ways is it used most functionally,

[00:12:07] this might become your definition for what the thing is.

[00:12:10] But generally speaking, someone who leans heavily on ontology

[00:12:16] would likely say the intent of that thing.

[00:12:21] The creator’s intent for that particular item, that service, right?

[00:12:29] So hopefully you can already start to see that there might be insights gained

[00:12:34] when you look at a particular thing, a particular team through this lens

[00:12:40] or through one of the other lenses.

[00:12:42] Maybe you’ve been looking through the lens of ontology at a team

[00:12:47] and you could be looking, you know, you could gain some insight

[00:12:52] by looking through a teleological lens at the team.

[00:12:56] And the third is dynamism.

[00:12:58] The third is dynamism.

[00:12:59] Dynamism essentially identifies the changing environment, right?

[00:13:07] The changing intent.

[00:13:10] You could say, for example, that this team, the intent of this team,

[00:13:16] so that would be a teleological argument.

[00:13:19] The goal of this team is to provide feedback on, let’s say, grammar, okay?

[00:13:27] The goal of the team was to, you know, take in and provide this as a service to other teams.

[00:13:32] Maybe you send your writings to this team and they give you feedback on your grammar.

[00:13:37] And dynamism would be able to identify that the role of this team

[00:13:45] may be necessary to change the role of the team because of some external factor.

[00:13:53] In this case, the factor that grammar is fairly easily outsourced to something like

[00:14:00] an AI assistant or even something as simple as autocorrect.

[00:14:05] Ontology and teleology wouldn’t necessarily provide that kind of change or intent of change

[00:14:14] where the ontological argument might say, this is a team of grammar specialists.

[00:14:23] Thus, we can draw our own conclusions and they should be acting like a team of grammar specialists.

[00:14:31] The teleological argument would say, the intent, the purpose of this team is x,

[00:14:37] is to provide grammar as a service to other teams.

[00:14:41] Grammar insights is a service to other teams.

[00:14:44] That dynamism would look at both of these arguments and take into account

[00:14:51] the changing landscape or the context, right?

[00:14:53] Dynamism is going to look at contextually what is true about where this team is located

[00:15:02] or what’s going on around it.

[00:15:04] Now, it might seem like, based on what I’m saying here,

[00:15:08] that one or the other of these three philosophies is better.

[00:15:13] In fact, I imagine that you probably think that I’m pushing you

[00:15:16] to only imagine that dynamism is the right choice.

[00:15:22] But the truth is they are all in balance.

[00:15:25] They all can be considered important and useful for your situation.

[00:15:30] For example, if you were to use ontology to describe the characteristics of your own skill set,

[00:15:40] right?

[00:15:40] It may be that you have accepted labels or incorrect ontology from past roles,

[00:15:50] that you identified yourself by the title that you had

[00:15:54] rather than looking at what you actually are.

[00:15:58] And if you were to look at the ontology of your skill set, right?

[00:16:03] The ontological definition of what you are, what you’re capable of, maybe,

[00:16:09] then you might be able to change, and this is the critical factor,

[00:16:13] change the purpose of your next role.

[00:16:16] Change the purpose of your job such that the teleological definition,

[00:16:21] maybe you had previously determined that the goal or the purpose of your career

[00:16:27] is to become a senior or a staff engineer, right?

[00:16:32] And maybe you’ve determined that you actually have some other strengths.

[00:16:36] Maybe you want to shift your role into product.

[00:16:39] Well, now your teleological argument you previously made for your career

[00:16:44] has been being challenged, right?

[00:16:47] So now what you’re doing is you’re recognizing a couple of things.

[00:16:51] One, dynamically, right?

[00:16:54] So bringing in some dynamism here.

[00:16:58] Your situation may have changed.

[00:16:59] Maybe you lost your role.

[00:17:02] And so your previous ontological argument is now being challenged

[00:17:07] by the dynamic nature of reality, shifting reality around you.

[00:17:13] And this is where a lot of people actually struggle.

[00:17:18] They struggle to understand how that could be the case.

[00:17:22] Yesterday, I was defined as this, right?

[00:17:27] That’s ontological language.

[00:17:29] Yesterday, I was a senior engineer, and today I am not.

[00:17:34] So what am I, right?

[00:17:36] This is a dynamic situation.

[00:17:39] You’re going to be faced with dynamic situations

[00:17:41] in your career over and over and over and over.

[00:17:45] So what am I?

[00:17:47] This is, again, using an ontological lens

[00:17:55] to help you reestablish the next steps for your career.

[00:17:59] Or you could do the same thing from a teleological lens.

[00:18:04] Instead of looking at your skills

[00:18:06] and looking at your past role definitions

[00:18:09] to try to define what you are, maybe you instead determine,

[00:18:13] okay, I don’t really care what the skills are.

[00:18:16] I could acquire new skills, right?

[00:18:19] I don’t really care where I live.

[00:18:21] I could move.

[00:18:22] I could change the definition, the ontological side of things.

[00:18:28] I want to set a very clear purpose or outcome for my career.

[00:18:35] This would be using the teleological lens for your should.

[00:18:42] Now, it’s important that you understand this.

[00:18:44] This doesn’t necessarily, you can use these frameworks

[00:18:49] in making decisions about business, right?

[00:18:52] So let’s say you own a startup,

[00:18:54] and maybe your startup’s original goal

[00:18:56] was to help people understand the benefits of,

[00:19:00] let’s say, installing solar on their roof panels.

[00:19:04] And you realize that, and here’s the dynamic side,

[00:19:09] the dynamism is going to come into play.

[00:19:10] You realize that the business is failing, right?

[00:19:14] You can’t get people to convert,

[00:19:17] and they don’t really care too much,

[00:19:20] but you recognize there’s a pattern,

[00:19:22] there’s some trend in your data.

[00:19:25] And you sit down and you ask yourself,

[00:19:27] okay, what are we good at?

[00:19:29] This is an ontological question.

[00:19:32] What are we good at?

[00:19:33] What can we do well?

[00:19:35] Well, we’re good at surfacing this data.

[00:19:39] We’re good at finding and surfacing reliable data

[00:19:43] about solar, you know, in the transition to solar power.

[00:19:49] So what could we do?

[00:19:50] Maybe we could use this thing that we are good at,

[00:19:55] this ontological understanding of our identity.

[00:20:00] We could use that to our advantage,

[00:20:02] and instead change our purpose.

[00:20:04] We’re going to change our intent, our purpose,

[00:20:06] our outcome is no longer going to be,

[00:20:09] you know, let’s try to convert people to solar,

[00:20:12] but instead we’re going to provide,

[00:20:14] let’s say, an API, a data service

[00:20:17] to all of the solar companies out there.

[00:20:21] To allow them to use it in whatever way

[00:20:23] they deem appropriate, right?

[00:20:25] And the specifics of the idea doesn’t really matter here,

[00:20:28] but what we’re looking at is ways that you could pivot, right?

[00:20:33] Startups do this all the time.

[00:20:35] And this might seem confusing because so often

[00:20:40] in our careers or our personal lives,

[00:20:42] we have been used to, more used to,

[00:20:47] the teleological argument.

[00:20:49] Okay, what is it that you want to accomplish with your career?

[00:20:52] And we’re even taught as software engineers

[00:20:56] to focus on the outcomes and all of the solutions

[00:20:59] can be, you know, changed, interchangeable.

[00:21:02] We can shift the solutions underneath.

[00:21:04] We could, you know, buy versus build decisions

[00:21:07] are all about a teleological alignment, right?

[00:21:10] You’re trying to accomplish something.

[00:21:12] How you get there is less important than the outcome.

[00:21:15] But this is not the only way to make these intentional decisions.

[00:21:21] It’s possible to change what you’re trying to accomplish

[00:21:25] to take advantage of what you already have.

[00:21:28] And that is the ontological lens.

[00:21:31] And all of this is empowered by your ability

[00:21:34] to square with a changing reality around you.

[00:21:39] You don’t want to just stick with a preconceived notion

[00:21:43] of who or what you are, who or what your team is.

[00:21:47] If you have a charter that doesn’t really serve

[00:21:50] the, you know, your company’s current goals,

[00:21:53] then you’re putting your team at risk

[00:21:55] by continuing on the same charter.

[00:21:58] So using dynamism can help you understand,

[00:22:01] okay, what do we need to figure out?

[00:22:03] What kind of outcome should we shoot for?

[00:22:05] Or what are we already good at

[00:22:07] that we can redefine our charter around?

[00:22:11] Ultimately, making good decisions,

[00:22:14] you know, you’re probably not going to end up making

[00:22:17] a better decision by knowing about ontology versus teleology.

[00:22:22] Instead, what I’m hoping to do with these frameworks for you

[00:22:27] is help you understand that there is probably more flexibility

[00:22:31] in your decision-making than you realize.

[00:22:34] Not only is there more flexibility,

[00:22:36] but you’re probably making more assumptions

[00:22:38] about what a good decision is than you realize.

[00:22:42] If you can start to put some understanding,

[00:22:45] some framework of thinking around some of those assumptions,

[00:22:49] it will help you understand how to remove

[00:22:52] or change the assumptions themselves

[00:22:54] and ultimately find a better pathway to your should.

[00:23:00] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:23:02] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Wix Studio.

[00:23:06] If you think website builders mean limited control,

[00:23:08] then you probably have a stuck ontological definition

[00:23:13] of website builders.

[00:23:15] Think again.

[00:23:16] With Wix Studio’s developer-first ecosystem,

[00:23:18] you can spend less time on tedious tasks

[00:23:20] and more on the functionality

[00:23:21] that matters the most to you and your customers.

[00:23:23] You will develop online in a VS code-based IDE

[00:23:27] or locally via GitHub.

[00:23:28] You can extend and replace a suite

[00:23:30] of powerful business solutions

[00:23:32] and ship faster with Wix Studio’s AI code assistant.

[00:23:36] All of that is wrapped up

[00:23:38] in an automatically maintained infrastructure

[00:23:40] for total peace of mind.

[00:23:41] You can work in a developer-first ecosystem

[00:23:43] by heading over to wixstudio.com.

[00:23:45] Thanks again to Wix Studio

[00:23:47] for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:23:50] If you enjoyed this episode and you haven’t done this yet,

[00:23:54] okay, I’m not asking you to leave a second review.

[00:23:56] If you’ve never left a review for Developer Tea,

[00:23:59] please take a moment and leave a review

[00:24:02] The most impactful place to do this is iTunes.

[00:24:05] This is a huge help to help other engineers like you

[00:24:08] find and decide to listen to Developer Tea.

[00:24:12] Ultimately, this is the best way you can help us out.

[00:24:15] Second best way is if you haven’t yet subscribed,

[00:24:19] just click subscribe.

[00:24:20] It’s a very easy thing to do.

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[00:24:25] It will remind you when a new episode is out.

[00:24:27] One of the things that happens very often

[00:24:30] is people forget that this podcast exists.

[00:24:33] I know it sounds crazy,

[00:24:35] but they forget to download episodes and they get behind.

[00:24:38] If you want to stay up on the episodes of the show,

[00:24:40] the best way is to subscribe.

[00:24:41] Thanks so much for listening.

[00:24:43] And until next time, enjoy your tea.

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