How decisions are made Decisions, be they public or private, are made on the basis of beliefs, facts and values. People do not hold the same beliefs as to what the facts are. Even if they did hold the same beliefs as to the facts, there could still be disagreement as to what should be done. Because decisions are not based on fact alone or on what we believe to be fact. They are also based on the values we hold, on our ideas of what is important.
Individuals do have different sets of values.
No two people have had the same initial endowments or the same cultural, political and religious backgrounds. Thus, even if they agree on the facts and the relevance of the facts, they can still disagree on what is the appropriate decision. Educational programs involving public decision must take this into account, for both philosophic and practical reasons. If information programs built around as yet unmade public decisions tell people what decisions ought to be made, this is an attempt to force a particular set of values on those participating. Thus the program becomes indoctrination, not just the presentation of information.