Buridan's ass

Meanings

1. The hypothetical donkey who is placed precisely midway between two sources of food or water.
2. The hypothetical donkey in the context of certainly dying of hunger or thirst by being unable to choose between the two equidistant options.
3. The hypothetical donkey, as a typical character of a number of philosophical paradoxes involving equally valuable incentives to action, and the nature of the possible choices and outcomes.

1. A person or organization who does not make a choice.
2. Collectively, people who do not make a choice.

1. Alternative spelling of Buridan's ass (“the hypothetical donkey who is the subject of a philosophical paradox concerning choices of equal value”).

Etymology

After the fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan, whose philosophy of moral determinism it satirizes.