white pill

plural white pills

1. attributiveoftenhuman sciencesA 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.

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

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

   3 more examples

   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.

   1979, Ronald A. Howard, Life and death decision analysis, page 17

   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.

   1984, Management Science - Volume 30, page 414

   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.

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

   Antonyms: black pill

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