white pill

white pill (plural white pills)

1. (philosophy, often attributive) A philosophical dilemma in which someone who faces death or disability at a certain probability is offered a perfect antidote if they pay a specified amount of money.
   • 1979, Ronald A. Howard, Life and death decision analysis, page 17:

     Now that we have both the black pill and white pill results before us, we are in a position to make a few general observations.

   • 1984, Management Science - Volume 30, page 414:

     We can also think of selling risks of being disabled. Suppose that a person facing a risk p of being disabled to level f could avoid that risk for a payment x. How much should he pay? We call this the disability white pill question and diagram it as shown in Figure 6.

   • 1986, Robert E. Machol, “How much safety?”, in Interfaces, volume 16, number 6:

     Howard [1984] bases his analysis on a "black pill” and a "white pill."

   • 2017, M. Granger Morgan, Theory and Practice in Policy Analysis, →ISBN, page 124:

     While most people find the formulation of the white pill problem to be perfectly acceptable, many find the black pill problem to be very objectionable.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see white,‎ pill.

• (antonym(s) of “philosophical dilemma”): black pill