Uncertainty: Blessing or Curse?
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.