Fakename:
IMHO, you are conflating “prudence” with “being scared of making the wrong choice.” What you call “prudence” I call “cowardice.”
There are many people out there who basically can’t make decisions out of fear of making the wrong decision. This wreaks enormous pain on those around them, particularly those unfortunate enough to need to rely on them to make the right choices.
The example I see is potential jury members in crimimal cases who are never allowed on juries because they can’t ever decide that a criminal defendant is guilty. These jurors can’t decide if someone is guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” because the jurors demand even higher proof, i.e., beyond any shadow of doubt. Judges and lawyers try very hard to vet these folks off juries before a trial begins because once they are on the jury – and it happens – those few people basically can’t ever vote to convict a clearly-guilty defendant…and the defendant winds up going free (or the jury deadlocks and all parties spend countless $$ on a new trial).
Now, you write:
“If someone is acting in self-defense but you don’t know if they are or aren’t simply by their actions, then would it not be imprudent of you to call police? If the answer is that it isn’t imprudent because there is a public disorder going on it both 1) only sets the question back a step -surely there has been times when someone was unsure about what to do,”
–It’ IMHO NEVER “imprudent” to “call the police” when you see a fight going on. Never.
“2) it’s wrong that every public disturbance is wrong, so that calling the cops doesn’t follow from what you saw alone.”
–You have to deal with probabilies. MOST public disturbances are wrong. Such a “public disturbance” you posit is PROBABLY “wrong” at many levels. Err on the side of probabilities and call the police. So the fighters are joking? Joking which scares the public sufficiently that the police get called is still wrong.
"I think [the question] was if prudence really does imply “getting all possible knowledge about something”.
–No, since often there’s insufficient time to get all possible knowledge. I could define prudence as “erring on the side of caution, particularly in all matters involving public safety.” See a fight? Call police. The worse that happens is that there really was no fight; but the best that happens is you get a criminal off the street. Smell smoke? Look around for a fire and if doubtful call the fire department. Maybe there was no fire…but maybe you saved a life or someone’s house.
Remember what Edmund Burke wrote: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
