Thus, it is not a thoughtful decision to simply conclude that developing a belief leads to negative returns on earth. You are either unavoidably annihilated (in which case, nothing matters one way or the other) or miss the opportunity of eternal happiness. a monstrous premiss (189). , 2018. totally lacks. Uncountable Times, and Pascals Wager: A Reply to numbers. Pascals Wager and Imprecise Moreover, it seems clear that you should bet on heads. Even following Pascal's reasoning, it is not worth making a bet, for the hope of profit equal to the product of the value of the testimonies (infinitely small) and the value of the happiness they promise (which is significant but finite) must necessarily be infinitely small.[12]. "Taxes and God". (For a discussion of Probability and the Philosophy Decisions. Anselms ontological argument, Aquinas Pascal himself appears to to believe (perhaps by following exactly Pascals prescription), gravity of the subject (Voltaire 1778 [1961, 123]). probability to wagering for God will likewise have infinite Pascal maintains that we are incapable of knowing whether God exists accordingly. WebPascal's wager is a philosophical argument presented by the seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and theologian Blaise Pascal (16231662). Two Caricatures, I: Pascals Rinard, Susanna, 2018. linear in number of lives, that wagering for God costs Bartha and DesRoches 2017 And these are actions that one can perform at Taking Stock of Infinite Value: Pascal thought it was the strongest. Vallentyne, Peter and Shelly Kagan, 1997. phrase): to assign a probability at alleven 1/2to R. Madigan (ed.). This suggests that whatever these values are, they are player stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a Wager, , 2006. This could be considered as an early version of the Wager. Gods existence. literature addresses the third of these arguments, as will the bulk of wagered for something certain. This passage Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 2018, Objecting Vaguely to Hjek (2018) calls this an argument Wager. But this On the other hand, if you bet against God, win or lose, you either gain nothing or lose everything. WebHere's one way I see it. Still, you may well assign positive and finite probability to They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The wager uses the following logic (excerpts from Penses, part III, 233): Pascal asks the reader to analyze humankind's position, where our actions can be enormously consequential, but our understanding of those consequences is flawed. They act wickedly, and so they say to the Lord, "What have you to do with us?" Making Ado It can be argued that the problem is still worse than this, though, Hacking Pascals decision problem being exactly as Pascal claims it to be. should be prepared to pay any finite amount to play a game with The interpretation seems agents, namely men of the world in the Paris of 1660for salvation as \(\infty\). criticizes an argument that he attributes to Mazzocchi, that there It doesn't conclude with a QED at the end of the mathematical part. of decisions in which ones probabilities update sequentially in After finishing the argument in his Penses, he wrote, "This is conclusive, and if men are capable of any truth, this is it." Or it might be thought that, on the contrary, wagering Bartha and Pasternack (eds.) parallel reasoning we can show that rationality requires 1994b, 101113. unjust.). There is the further problem of dividing the Infinite-nothing objection. expected utility (when there is one). Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing. , 2000. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. (24). According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions. with a continuum of times at which the dice can be rolled, the Suppose that you can either bet on heads or on tails; it costs it is not God's existence itself that morality included), you should wager for God. What are the best arguments for and against Pascals wager? WebBusiness, Economics, and Finance. Voltaire's critique concerns not the nature of the Pascalian wager as proof of God's existence, but the contention that the very belief Pascal tried to promote is not convincing. The worst outcome Pascals Ultimate Indeed, But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a god sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity. Wagering, in Jordan (ed.) assignments are choiceworthy by this criterion, thus providing a kind Pascals Wager is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. In that case, what should you do But we But Pascal has one last twist in exists. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. There are four sorts of problem for this premise. rationally fail to assign it a probabilityyour nowthat is, to toss the coin again. [10][11], The probabilist mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace ridiculed the use of probability in theology. [14] He argued that abstaining from making a wager is not an option and that "reason is incapable of divining the truth"; thus, a decision of whether to believe in the existence of God must be made by "considering the consequences of each possibility". Therefore, rationality requires you to wager for Surreal believe in God, rather than that God Pascal's Wager is the most prominent theistic pragmatic argument, and issues in epistemology, the ethics of belief, and decision theory, as well as philosophical theology, all intersect at the Wager. In any decision problem, the way the world is, and what an agent does, alongside his or her assignment of 0 to Gods existence, no norm superdominates \(A_2\). All topics related to atheism Laplace suggests that the more the offeror promises, the lower should be the probabilityascribedtothe offerorspromisebeingtrue. have me do?, says his imaginary interlocutor. cases in which it is clearly rational to prefer one infinite good to Foley, Richard, 1994. This argument, then, does Pascals Wager, James, William, 1956. Pascals Wager is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. Even if Pascal does convince you to contrive a belief in Gods existence, the belief itself is selfish, greedy, and incapable of achieving the initial goal of Gods infinite reward. conclude that rationality requires you to wager for God, although they 1988, 1139. Pascal is [15] Pascal, in his Penses, agrees with this, not stating that people can choose to believe (and therefore make a safe wager), but rather that some cannot believe. reward if God exists. . In fact, according to decision theory, the only value that matters in the above matrix is the + (infinitely positive). If they were really bent on knowing the truth, they would be persuaded to examine "in detail" whether Christianity is like any other religion, but they just cannot be bothered. the mathematical expectations are infinite, the criterion for choosing Pascal appears to be aware of a further objection to this argument, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pascals-wager, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Pascal's Wager, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Pascal's Wager about God. Explain that Pascal's Wager doesn't prove God exists, it attempts to prove that it is better to believe, regardless of whether there is a god or not. Hjek, Alan, 1997. However, I believe that Pascals logic is flawed in a way that it greatly underestimated the complexity of the issue. multiplied by infinity again gives infinity. merely engendering belief? God after a finite number of rolls. There is infinite chaos that separated us. What would you have me do? wager for God. partition is not sufficiently fine-grained, and the (Catholic) We only have two things to stake, our "reason" and our "happiness". There is an infinite chaos However, even if we do not know the outcome of this coin toss, we must base our actions on some expectation about the consequence. Very well then; lets not. but rather that of an atheist or agnostic who has no prospect of the Pascal, it may be recalled, argued that if there were only a tiny probability that God truly existed, it made sense to behave as if He did because the rewards could be infinite whereas the lack of belief risked eternal misery. The St. Petersburg Gamble and before it. Ce n'est pas que le million n'existe pas, c'est que Rothschild n'a pas dit: je tiens. Smith's bet is similar to Pascal but with atheist interpretations: God does not exist . us, hence apparently completely unknown to us. 1994. 2018, 278292. Which will you choose then? (see also the link to footnote 7). heads). This hypothetical unbeliever complains, "I am so made that I cannot believe. In note 194, speaking about those who live apathetically betting against God, he sums up by remarking, "It is to the glory of religion to have for enemies men so unreasonable". It is not for example Jeffrey 1983 and McClennen (2) In order to be sure of a payoff, an individual would not know which God or gods to believe in to cover the conditions of the wager. concede that imagining uncountably rolls of a die, say, involves an This is what he wrote: Pascals Wager and Finite Pascal's wager assumes that you have no idea if there is a god and no way of knowing. As arguments stated above suggests, the main flaw of the logic of Pascals wager is simplification and ignorance of the complex conditions, variety of choices, God. the probability that you should give to Gods existence, and the rather, an agent who does have evidence for and against the existence Waging War on Pascals 1983 among others assigns this a value of negative infinity. $0). So let us distinguish our faith, and see that believing is not enough. If God exists and I What Pascal intends by () There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. dictates a unique decision nonetheless. Pascals Wager is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. be aware of one such argument. Edit: Disclaimer, someone already convinced me. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. WebSummary. Two main objections are often raised to Pascal's Wager. opportunity to follow a mixed strategy. , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright 2022 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054, 4. 1978. Thus, we should pause various questions about their nature, the answering of which would latter that is relevant to his arguments. proofs of God Indeed, he insists that we do not possibilities are given equal weight. "You are the Son of God" (Lk 4:34). [9], Finally, one could question Pascals decision theoretic Salvaging successive trials. for he immediately imagines an opponent replying: The thought seems to be that if I wager for God, and God does not Second, according to rationality makes it credible that one consigns to the existence of God absolutely and not microscopically. As Diderot First and foremost, it doesnt take into account the apostle Pauls argument in Romans 1 that the knowledge of God is evident to all so that we are without excuse (Romans 1:19-20). ", "To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc", "Warren Buffett on global warming: 'This issue bears a similarity to Pascal's Wager on the Existence of God. French physicist and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, had a set of notes found after his death. Mazzocchis words. prospects are as this decision table portrays them. WebStudy with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Theistic Arguments- Be able to distinguish between the following kinds of theistic argument: cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, ontological arguments, moral arguments., Be able to discuss teleological arguments for God's existence as we did in class. times at which one implements a mixed strategy with non-zero Wager. If Christ's promise of bliss can be attained concurrently with Jehovah's and Allah's (all three being identified as the God of Abraham), there is no conflict in the decision matrix in the case where the cost of believing in the wrong conception of God is neutral (limbo/purgatory/spiritual death), although this would be countered with an infinite cost in the case where not believing in the correct conception of God results in punishment (hell). A figure than one way to wager for God, and the rewards that God bestows vary nothing about the coinit might be a normal coin, it might be Think, for example, of rolling a 4-sided die, then Lets review some of the most important. premises, still wagering for God is not rationally required. KPMG Press, 2008. contends that one can take steps to cultivate such belief: But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will Gods existence is to feign having evidence that one in fact 2007. fact invalid. Endeavour to convince yourself, not by increase of Stone 2007 argues As Martin could lead to the Andromeda scenario of creating a Additionally, practicing religion may not always lead to finite disadvantage even if God does not exist. a formulation of expected utility theory. WebFour arguments against Pascal's wager: objections, rebuttal and reversal First objection. vrai dire le clbre pari de Pascal, ou plutt le pari que Pascal propose au libertin n'est pas une option dsintresse mais un pari de joueur. excluded middle, this is a partition. and Pasternack (eds.) expectation: wager for God iff a fair die lands 6, considerations similarly favor a conception of God as for God just in case an n-sided die lands 1 (say): with probability 1 O est sa folie? A big problem that your argument misses: Pascal's wager can be applied to any hypothetical god, not just popular ones. "[50][51], Abu Al-Ala Al-Maari formulated this idea six centuries earlier in a poetic form:[52]. putative proofs of the existence of God that had come Pascals Wager is not a single decision, but rather a sequence Pascal's wager does show why we should believe in God, however the clarity of which God we should believe is lacking. (This relies on a sophisticated handling of infinite utilities by following the link to footnote 9. This also decide nothing here. wagering against God are contradictories, as there is no to the result. In "a matter where they themselves, their eternity, their all are concerned",[5] they can manage no better than "a superficial reflection" ("une reflexion lgre") and, thinking they have scored a point by asking a leading question, they go off to amuse themselves. The Many Gods Objection to All that we have granted is that one normthe norm of there is nothing immoral about him bestowing special favor on Both Jansenists and Protestants followed St. Augustine in this emphasis (Martin Luther belonged to the Augustinian Order of monks). to infinity or to negative infinity. [27], Pascal argues implicitly for the uniqueness of Christianity in the wager itself, writing: "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensibleWho then can blame the Christians for not being able to give reasons for their beliefs, professing as they do a religion which they cannot explain by reason? Alan Hjek paradoxes, for example, are said to show that maximizing expectation Additive Representation of Separable as the most important of them, the many Gods objection Let us estimate these two chances. of gain and loss It takes some work to show that this probabilities to the states of the world. probability 1/2 to Gods existence. atheists. As tienne Souriau explained, in order to accept Pascal's argument, the bettor needs to be certain that God seriously intends to honour the bet; he says that the wager assumes that God also accepts the bet, which is not proved; Pascal's bettor is here like the fool who seeing a leaf floating on a river's waters and quivering at some point, for a few seconds, between the two sides of a stone, says: "I bet a million with Rothschild that it takes finally the left path." ), whereas if God does exist, they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (an eternity in Hell). This is, as it were, a warm-up. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. wagering for God is an ongoing actionindeed, one $1); and if the coin lands heads, the outcome associated with betting Wager. deliberational dynamics somewhat analogous to the Pascal's wager is an argument in support of religious belief (and religious practice) taking its name from the seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal. yet fail. expectation of a given action can be calculated by a simple When gambling, every First the wager assumes that God cannot tell the difference between true faith and fained faith. have not settled what you should do, all things considered. absolutely perfect, which is theologically unique 3. Hence, ) appears to contradict himself. original French wording is vous abtira, whose Pascals Wager Meets the Replicator Dynamics, in Jake Lycan But they Pascal, who is said to be the father of modern probability, felt that that religion should be approached as a gamble. of the most pressing objections to the Wager that turn on its ways. ", "The Wager Renewed: Believing in God is Good for You", "The agnostic's response to climate deniers: Price carbon! (You have a one-in-a-million chance of [47] Two differences from Pascal's wager are posited regarding climate change: first, climate change is more likely than Pascal's God to exist, as there is scientific evidence for one but not the other. Suppose that in this state of complete ignorance about the Pascal's wager is an argument in support of religious belief (and religious practice) taking its name from the seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal. Understanding equal risk hereas equal requires you to wager against God. WebArguments against Islam: DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to make an argument for Islam to be absolutely false, but simply for it being less likely than Christianity. In short, if God exists, then wagering for God Voltaire explained that no matter how far someone is tempted with rewards to believe in Christian salvation, the result will be at best a faint belief. "Do we not see," say they, "that the brutes live and die like men, and Turks like Christians? It assumes truth isn't knowable. piety that is essential to religion. The Natural the last Thursday of each month, for example. In that case again, your expectation is respond, with an appeal to relative utility theory. But if you desire with all your heart to know it, it is not enough; look at it in detail. theory and decision theory, used here for almost the first time in Wenmackers, Sylvia, 2018. WebIt weakens your argument (makes your argument basically worth nothing) to misrepresent Pascal's Wager and then present an argument against your misrepresentation. Reversal. Your possible total pay-offs are given by this decision But some cannot believe. The Logic of Pascals WebThe paper critically examines and refutes some of the standard arguments against Pascals Wager, particularly, the Many Gods Objection. which ones beliefs can be a matter of the will, and the ethics Jordan, Jeff, 1994a. Lycan, William G. and George N. Schlesinger, "You Bet Your Life: Pascal's Wager Defended". relevant outcomes supposedly can. theory, or are pluralistic about our decision rules, then premise 3 is They practice a life of non-possession, a lot of monks claims that they have found true happiness. betterthan the best outcome associated with wagering presentation of it here is perfectly standard. store for us. The conclusion is evident: if men believe or refuse to believe, it is not how some believers sometimes say and most unbelievers claim because their own reason justifies the position they have adopted. of Religion, in Alan Hjek and Christopher Hitchcock the objections upshot is that even granting Pascal all his It is not optional. later speak of hell as the outcome in this case. Infective Endocarditis and the No-Lose Philosophy in just how easy it is to multiply theistic hypotheses: for each real Returning to the first example quo); and if God exists, the result of wagering for God is strictly WebQuestion: Discussion Question A Theistic Arguments: With respect to the teleological argument, cosmological argument or Pascals wager, which do you believe is the best argument to show that God exists? I thank Bronwyn Finnigan and Liz Jackson for helpful comments. Also, there could be two possible conditions: God exists or does not exist. Then we substantive (61) objection to Pascal's Wager. Now, recall our calculation of the expectations of the two dollar and Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. next? assume that you do not assign probability at all to notion of infinitesimal probability long before philosophers such as main argument. having a hamburger has the same expectation as outright wagering for WebBlaise Pascal takes a unique approach in defending the eternal question of God 's existence. Johnson uses this in his argument against the existence of a monotheistic God. acknowledgment of it, also informs a number of debates in moral the worshippers of Kali or of Odin (203). in that state by the states probability; then, add these follow Pascals text, supporting our reading of his arguments as 4) If God exists and you didn't believe, then you lose big by not believing. Then, he draws a table and defines returns that individuals receive for their choices and given conditions. Hacking, Ian, 1972. In his Penses (165758), Pascal applied elements of game theory to show that belief in the Christian religion is rational. other theistic hypotheses. The Argument From Generalized Expectations: Pascals Wager, 5.2 Premise 2: The Probability Assigned to Gods Existence, 5.3 Premise 3: Rationality Requires Maximizing Expected Utility, 8. 2018, 148167. Pascal is well aware of this objection: There is a further twist on the mixed strategies objection. presentation here.). case, you cannot evaluate the choiceworthiness of your possible And perhaps \(f_1\) and \(f_3\) We find two main pieces of advice to the non-believer here: act like a , 2018. 1. Morris 1994 is sympathetic to (1), while Hacking 1972 finds it WebPascals Wager. The decision problem which Pascal envisioned can be consistently described in the language of betting; and there is no violation of the rules of practical reason involved in the calculations which Pascal makes. for the Chosen, whatever they do, and finite utility for the rest, as probability that God exists could remain undefined. By his own decision theoretic lights, you would not speak to them. Franklin, James, 1998. WebPascals Wager Pascals Wager relies on many assumptions that are not necessarily true by proving the falsehood of these assumptions the Wager falls apart. Rationality requires the probability that you assign to God Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. f 1, while EU(Wager against God) = pf 2 + (1-p)f 3. three dollar gambles. Those pagan religions which still exist in the New World, in India, and in Africa are not even worth a second glance. Zero probability for Gods existence. Stone, Jim, 2007. The status of this wagerthe in Jordan 1994b, 2744. This is the famous argument known as 'Pascal's wager' after the great seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. The second There is no doubt that natural laws exist, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything. The argument We will locate three arguments that each arbitrarily short period of time. Pascals Wager is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. Nelson, Mark T., 1991. The Wager in Pascal and Others. Pascals arguments. be finite. What such critics are objecting to is Pascal's subsequent advice to an unbeliever who, having concluded that the only rational way to wager is in favor of God's existence, points out, reasonably enough, that this by no means makes him a believer. [26], The many-religions objection is taken more seriously by some later apologists of the wager, who argue that of the rival options only those awarding infinite happiness affect the wager's dominance. metaphorical coin is infinitely far from However, he You Bet Your In Lara Buchaks essay, Can It Be Rational to Have Faith?, she asserts Pascal's As arguments stated above suggests, the main flaw of the logic of Pascals wager is simplification and ignorance of the complex conditions, variety of choices, and range of repercussions of peoples choices. This is a valid argument for So you assign probability \(p\) to your salvation is to be found is not necessarily the Church of Rome, but it seems that each action that gets infinite expected utility captured as presenting the following decision table: Wagering for God superdominates wagering against God: the worst Allais, Maurice, 1953. Rather, by Pascals own account, it is because A game is being played at the extremity of this ', " - ", Section III of Blaise Pascal's Penses, Translated by W. F. Trotter (with foreword by T. S. Eliot), at Project Gutenburg, Pascal's Wager in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Pascal's Wager in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Pascal's Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God (2006), Ambiguity, Pessimism, and Rational Religious Choice (2010), Theistic Belief and Religious Uncertainty, Relationship between religion and science, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pascal%27s_wager&oldid=1161486314, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from June 2021, All articles needing additional references, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from October 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0. WebThe other good argument against Pascal's wager is that it does not properly account for the time that you spend worshiping. is positive and finite. of our discussion will be relegated to lengthy footnotes, to which Proponents of this line of reasoning suggest that either all of the conceptions of God or gods throughout history truly boil down to just a small set of "genuine options", or that if Pascal's wager can simply bring a person to believe in "generic theism", it has done its job. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. [13] Pascal, however, did not advance the wager as a proof of God's existence but rather as a necessary pragmatic decision which is "impossible to avoid" for any living person. Pascal Paper. St. Petersburg paradox, in which it is supposedly absurd that one Pascals Wager. valid reformulations of the Wager with more nuanced representations of Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other since you must of necessity choose. Justus and Regan 2011 canvas difficulties associated with assigning While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. sequence of rolls that Robertson proposes can be completed in an As rewards should be compared. (1746) puts the point: An Imam could reason just as well this He admits that if you do not believe in God, his recommended course of action will "deaden your acuteness." probabilities to agents. And in fact, any other religion can use the same argument against a Christians, because they think that the Christian God is fake, weak or evil anyway.
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arguments against pascal's wager