Action in Uncertainty

4Act Anyway!

When you do something, know that you will have against you those who would like to do the same thing, those who wanted the opposite, and the vast majority of those who wanted to do nothing.

Confucius

How many things you have to ignore to “act”!

Paul Valéry¹

The question of rationality in the action should be central, but it is not, because the action generally imposes itself naturally upon humans. As we will see, it is not easy to judge if the continuation of the actions composing the chosen scenario is really rational. Rationally or not, we act, but often, at the moment of acting, we have the impression that it is difficult. We hesitate at first when faced with a choice where the various criteria, like the price and the quality, generally pull in opposite directions. Then, we can be blocked by apprehensions in our head or by brain biases. Finally, as in the first quote above, it is the context, or others, that make the action problematic. We will study these three situations and see how to remove the obstacles, but first, let us ask ourselves if it is rational to act.

4.1. Rationality of the action

As we have seen, it is reasonable to think that the decision to act is triggered by a difference that we want to reduce between the current state of the world and the one we desire. William the Silent’s famous motto: “One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere” seems quite debatable to us, especially the first part. Having supported ...