A hungry, thirsty donkey stands exactly between food and water — which way does it go?
Picture a donkey that is equally hungry and equally thirsty, standing exactly equidistant from a pile of hay and a bucket of water. It has no more reason to choose one over the other — both are equally appealing, equally close, equally urgent. If a purely rational chooser needs a reason to prefer one option over an identical rival, what does this donkey actually do?
Reveal the answer
Taken literally, the donkey can never break the tie between two perfectly equal options and starves — a satire of the idea that reason alone, without some tie-breaking mechanism like whim or randomness, can always force a decision. The scenario is named for 14th-century philosopher Jean Buridan, though he never actually wrote it in donkey form; the underlying dilemma traces back further, to Aristotle's example of a man equally hungry and thirsty.