"Regarding (1), we pretty much always have excellent reason to mistrust our judgments, and then we have to choose anyway; inaction is also a choice. The null plan is a plan. As Russell and Norvig put it, refusing to act is like refusing to allow time to pass."

This goes to the crux of the matter, why to the extent the future is uncertain, it is better to decide based on principles (representing wisdom encoded via evolutionary processes over time) rather than on the flat basis of expected consequences.