When it's right to be wrong

A capacity for risk assessment is part of what it means to be a rational agent. Unlike animals, humans can think about the future and take precautionary measure to diminish or avoid predictable hazards. It's often permissible, obligatory, or necessary to minimize risk. 

On a related note, we sometimes agonize over making the right decision or regret making the wrong decision, not in the moral sense, but in terms of whether our choice was beneficial. Did we act in our own best interest and/or the best interests of those we care about? We sometimes find ourselves in a position where we are forced to make important and irreversible choices based on insufficient evidence. We have deadlines. The opportunity will pass. For better or worse, we must act. 

But sometimes the reverse is true. Sometimes we have an obligation to take a risk rather than play it safe. For instance, fratricide is common in royal dynasties. Although the reigning king may have designated an heir, that very action makes the heir apparent a target. His brothers and half-brothers vie for the throne. 

As a result, fratricide is not uncommon in royal families. Preemptively eliminating potential murderous rivals by striking first. If you allow them to live, they may assassinate you. And if you have young sons, they may kill those too–like a lion who takes over the tribe by killing the old lion and his cubs. 

From a secular standpoint, that ruthlessness  is understandable. But from a Christian standpoint, you have a duty not to bump off your siblings even though it's risky for you to let them live. And sometimes they will abuse that clemency. Yet there are situations where it's right to be wrong. By that I mean, even if it turns out that one of them is a traitor, you had an obligation not to snuff them out. In a sense you were wrong to trust them, to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it's better to be mistaken than to be murderous. 

Sometimes we fret too much about making the wrong decision, yet there are situations in which, paradoxically enough, we made the right decision even if it turned out badly. Conversely, there are situations in which we made the wrong decision even if it had a better outcome. Sometimes risky behavior is obligatory.

Admittedly, that doesn't make much sense if this life is all there is. But if there are eschatological compensations, if the first shall be last and the last first, then we ultimately have nothing to lose by losing in this life. 

Of course, most of us are not in line to assume the throne, so we don't face that temptation. Nowadays, European monarchies are tourist attractions, so the stakes are far lower for winners and losers than in the past. However, that's not the case for Muslim monarchies. 

But there are other mundane situations where assuming a risk is obligatory. When it's right to be wrong.