Hobson's Choice - Modern Use

Modern Use

Hobson's choice is often misused to mean a false illusion of choice, but it is not a choice between two undesirable options, which is a Morton's fork. Such a choice between two options of nearly equal value is more properly called a dilemma. Hobson's choice is one between something or nothing.

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. (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.) Notwithstanding that confused usage, the phrase, "Hobbesian choice" is historically incorrect.

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.

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".

In INS v. Chadha, 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 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. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) ("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.