Around us, surrounding us, decisions and revisions to decisions abound. Invariably we decide “at the margin” based on where we are.  But how is it that we are where we are at decision-time, with our choices seemingly constrained by circumstances?

Now the above may strike us as  ponderous – at best – but a recognition of  its implications for public policy and comity, within and across borders, within and between groups,  is essential to an understanding that the choices presented to us, given to us, or selected by us from the data at hand, themselves reflect and emerge out of prior choices; and this emergence (ancestry) complicates and presses the moral imperative that we challenge ourselves to challenge choices at the moment.

The choices within the range, at the moment of choice, ought not to obfuscate the links that tie choices to choices.  We may need to take the past as we find it today, but we would be wise to appreciate that tomorrow’s past is today’s responsibility.