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Uncertainty: Blessing or Curse?

  • Frank M. Machovec EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 13. Januar 2016

Abstract

The concepts of free will and uncertainty are inseparably intertwined. This interdisciplinary essay, instead of expounding upon the technical difference between risk and uncertainty (as classically delineated by Frank Knight), assumes that both words bring to mind the same general idea to a layperson, namely, something that’s not certain to occur but may occur, whether or not the precise degree of likelihood can be calculated. With this simplification as a given, the article proceeds to analyze, first, the cultural perspective that’s a prerequisite to the existence of a belief in free will; second, the role of the limits of human knowledge in constraining the efficacy of the quest to battle uncertainty by building models of predictability and control in the physical sciences versus the social sciences; and third (and finally), the negative implications for capital-market health of attempting to satisfy, through the adoption of public policies of redress and entitlement based on a Rawlsian system of fairness, the alleged yearning by individuals to obviate distributional uncertainty.

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Notes

This article is largely based on material drawn from several chapters of the author’s unpublished manuscript, The Harmful Consequences of Kindness: Spawning the Meltdown of 2008, which is in its final edit stage. Therefore, copyright ownership has been reserved. The author has also completed two-thirds of the research and writing on a book-length essay entitled The Contributions of German-Language Writers to Value Theory, Law, and Social Order. Reflections from this work will hopefully be apparent herein.


Published Online: 2016-1-13
Published in Print: 2015-12-1

©2015 by De Gruyter

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