The assumption of “natural prudence” and the challenges of the gambler

One of the things that stays the basis of the modern political thought is the strong belief in the reality of the natural prudence of the human beeings. What does this mean (and how to make some sense out of it)?

The response is that most modern (from Hobbes onwards) political thinkers considers man as someone who is inclined in his essence (a realistic essence)/nature for at least two things :

1. to consider his own bodily/mental integrity as a purpose in itself
2. to evaluate situations and make decisions for future actions in terms of costs/benefits (future or present)

Those two things combined result in the notion of the “natural prudence” of the man. The usage of the term “natural” must not be overlooked. It’s meaning is that this “prudence” (the one considered “natural”) is something that man has before he receives any kind of education or social formation. It’s in his nature/essence. You cannot be a man unless you are a prudent beeing.

To make this more concrete I will give two examples from the XX century political philosophy : Nozick (“Anarchy, State, Utopy”) and Rawls (“A theory of justice”).

Nozick :

Nozick needs the natural prudence to show that any men that are in a state of nature will eventually make use (or form by associating with others) of the “protection associations”.

This intermediary state is called the ultra-minimal state (ie. a bunch of “protection associations” are protecting the rights for the men who pay them) and it’s an intermediary state towards the minimal state (that’s what Nozick wants to prove as necessary)

So, people start of in a hypothetical state of nature where they possess only their rights (the lockeean rights). Because of their inborn/default prudence they will create/subscribe to “protection associations”. When they are in the situation to choose between protecting their natural rights all by themselves  or letting a more powerfull organisation do it their natural prudence will constrain them (as beeing the most rational choice available)  to choose the second. That’s expressed by Nozick, when he says that the natural state is not a stable state.

Rawls :

The major purpose of Rawls investigation is to understand what kind of broad political/social policies would make a just society (or : how would a just society look).

A fundamental “reflection device” used by Rawls is the thought experiment named “the veil of ignorance”. According to the imaginary situation proposed by this experiment, we have to think of the principles of a just society, without knowing our social position or entry conditions (ie. the family in which we will be born, our education, health, etc.).

Rawls considers that our natural prudence will make us accept that the only social policy (or principle of justice) which would make sense is the one that tends to favour the the least-advantaged members of our society (the so called “principle of difference”)

So for example : a person which has very weak mental abilities (ie. Down syndrome, etc.) should receive much more resources/favours/investements   in his education that someone who is highly gifted in mathematics.

The gambler

Altrough it’s quite intuitive that we should agree with the way Nozick and Rawls (and others) use the “natural prudence” this is not enough for a good justificaton.

The main challenger of the modern “natural prudence” principle is the gambler.  The gambler would challenge one or both things enumerated at the beginning.

The first thing : the gambler doesn’t care too much about his physical/mental integrity. If he is a medieval samurai or a modern day mercenary (or even an extreme sports fan) there are much more important things at stake that his own physical/mental integrity. For example, for the samurai honour and recognition comes first. He would prefer to die than to accept that he could live a life protected by others (ie. would disagree with Nozick) or a life in which he is constantly taken care of like a baby (ie. he would disagree with Rawls).

The second thing : the gambler doesn’t think in terms of cost/bemefices. He likes to gamble. Everything or nothing. Anything between is not acceptable.