About this topic
Summary Traditional theistic arguments conclude that God exists. Practical arguments for theism, by contrast, conclude that we have practical reason(s) to believe in God. Pascal's wager is one of the most famous. In his Pensées, Pascal argues that because “there is an infinitely happy life to gain” and “what you stake is finite," it is practically rational to "wager, then, without hesitation that [God] is" (fragments 233-241). There has been much debate about Pascal's argument since, including: what should we say about the fact that there are multiple religions (i.e. the many gods objection)? Does introducing infinities into decision theory give all decisions the same expected value (i.e. the mixed strategies objection)? Is it possible to believe for a practical reason? Is it rational to believe for a practical reason? Can we interpret "wagering" in terms of something other than belief? 
Key works Prominent objections to Pascal's wager include Mougin & Sober 1994, Duff 1986, Hájek 2003, and Bostrom 2009. Prominent defenses of Pascal's wager (and responses to objections) include Lycan & Schlesinger 1988, Jordan 2006Bartha 2007, Monton 2011, Rota 2016 (see also Rota's book, Taking Pascal's Wager, for an extended defense of the wager).  Edited collections on the wager include Jordan 1994 and Bartha & Pasternack 2018.
Introductions Introductions to Pascal's wager include Rota 2017 and Hájek 2008.
Related

Contents
213 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 213
  1. Pragmatic Arguments in the Qur'an for Belief.M. Shahid Alam - manuscript
  2. Planning for Pascal's Mugging.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - manuscript
    In "Pascal's Mugging" (Bostrom 2009), Pascal gives away his wallet for an extremely tiny chance of an extremely large reward. In this continuation of Bostrom's story, Pascal's friend counsels him to take into account the possibility of making mistakes about his true expected utilities, and they consider to what extent this will help Pascal make plans to avoid future muggings.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. A Paradox for Tiny Probabilities and Enormous Values.Nick Beckstead & Teruji Thomas - forthcoming - Noûs.
    We begin by showing that every theory of the value of uncertain prospects must have one of three unpalatable properties. _Reckless_ theories recommend giving up a sure thing, no matter how good, for an arbitrarily tiny chance of enormous gain; _timid_ theories permit passing up an arbitrarily large potential gain to prevent a tiny increase in risk; _non-transitive_ theories deny the principle that, if A is better than B and B is better than C, then A must be better than (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  4. The Buddha's Lucky Throw and Pascal's Wager.Bronwyn Finnigan - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    The Apaṇṇaka Sutta, one of the early recorded teachings of the Buddha, contains an argument for accepting the doctrines of karma and rebirth that Buddhist scholars claim anticipates Pascal’s wager. I call this argument the Buddha’s wager. Does it anticipate Pascal’s wager and is it a good bet? Contemporary scholars identify at least four versions of Pascal’s wager in his Pensées. This article demonstrates that the Buddha’s wager anticipates two versions of Pascal’s wager, but not its canonical form. Like Pascal’s (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Know Your Way Out of St. Petersburg: An Exploration of "Knowledge-First" Decision Theory.Frank Hong - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-20.
    This paper explores the consequences of applying two natural ideas from epistemology to decision theory: (1) that knowledge should guide our actions, and (2) that we know a lot of non-trivial things. In particular, we explore the consequences of these ideas as they are applied to standard decision theoretic puzzles such as the St. Petersburg Paradox. In doing so, we develop a “knowledge-first” decision theory and we will see how it can help us avoid fanaticism with regard to the St. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  6. An Epistemic Version of Pascal's Wager.Elizabeth Jackson - forthcoming - Journal of the American Philosophical Association:1-17.
    Epistemic consequentialism is the view that epistemic goodness is more fundamental than epistemic rightness. This paper examines the relationship between epistemic consequentialism and theistic belief. I argue that, in an epistemic consequentialist framework, there is an epistemic reason to believe in God. Imagine having an unlimited amount of time to ask an omniscient being anything you wanted. The potential epistemic benefits would be enormous. Considerations like these point to an epistemic version of Pascal’s wager. I compare and contrast the epistemic (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Faithfully Taking Pascal’s Wager.Elizabeth Jackson - 2023 - The Monist 106 (1):35–45.
    I examine the relationship between taking Pascal’s wager, faith, and hope. First, I argue that many who take Pascal’s wager have genuine faith that God exists. The person of faith and the wagerer have several things in common, including a commitment to God and positive cognitive and conative attitudes toward God’s existence. If one’s credences in theism are too low to have faith, I argue that the wagerer can still hope that God exists, another commitment-justifying theological virtue. I conclude with (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  8. Pragmatic Arguments for Theism.Elizabeth Jackson - 2023 - In John Greco, Tyler Dalton McNabb & Jonathan Fuqua (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 70–82.
    Traditional theistic arguments conclude that God exists. Pragmatic theistic arguments, by contrast, conclude that you ought to believe in God. The two most famous pragmatic theistic arguments are put forth by Blaise Pascal (1662) and William James (1896). Pragmatic arguments for theism can be summarized as follows: believing in God has significant benefits, and these benefits aren’t available for the unbeliever. Thus, you should believe in, or ‘wager on’, God. This article distinguishes between various kinds of theistic wagers, including finite (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  9. A Permissivist Defense of Pascal’s Wager.Elizabeth Grace Jackson - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (6):2315-2340.
    Epistemic permissivism is the thesis that the evidence can rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. Pascal’s wager is the idea that one ought to believe in God for practical reasons, because of what one can gain if theism is true and what one has to lose if theism is false. In this paper, I argue that if epistemic permissivism is true, then the defender of Pascal’s wager has powerful responses to two prominent objections. First, I argue that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  10. On Two Arguments for Fanaticism.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - 2023 - Noûs.
    Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? *Fanaticism* says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better. I consider two related recent arguments for Fanaticism: Beckstead and Thomas's argument from *strange dependence on space and time*, and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  11. A compendium of paradoxes. [REVIEW]William D’Alessandro - 2022 - Metascience 31 (3):1-4.
    A review of Matt Cook's book Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Wittgenstein’s Wager: On [Absolute] Certainty.Noah Greenstein - 2022 - Southwest Philosophy Review 38 (1):51-57.
    Knowledge is analyzed in terms of the cost incurred when mistakes are made — things we should have known better, but didn’t. Following Wittgenstein at the end of On Certainty, an Epistemic Wager, similar to Pascal’s Wager, is set up to represent the cost differences not in belief vs. disbelief, but in knowledge vs. skepticism. This leads to a core class of absolutely certain knowledge, related to Moorean Facts, that is integrated into our everyday lives. This core knowledge is resistant (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. From Desire to Conversion: Pascal's Wager and Girard's Mimetic Theory.Joel Hodge - 2022 - Heythrop Journal 63 (4):691-702.
    The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 691-702, July 2022.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. Pascal’s Wager and Decision-making with Imprecise Probabilities.André Neiva - 2022 - Philosophia 51 (3):1479-1508.
    Unlike other classical arguments for the existence of God, Pascal’s Wager provides a pragmatic rationale for theistic belief. Its most popular version says that it is rationally mandatory to choose a way of life that seeks to cultivate belief in God because this is the option of maximum expected utility. Despite its initial attractiveness, this long-standing argument has been subject to various criticisms by many philosophers. What is less discussed, however, is the rationality of this choice in situations where the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Pascal’s Wager: a Reason to Hesitate.Amos Wollen - 2022 - Philosophia 50 (5):2743-2750.
    One version of Pascal’s Wager says we should commit to, or cultivate belief in, whatever religion we think is most likely to bring us eternal joy. I pose a reductio for this version of the Wager. After exploring some ways the Pascalian might respond, the verdict is that it provides some reason to suspect that somewhere, somehow, the Wager goes wrong.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Can Pascal’s Wager Save Morality from Ockham’s Razor?Tobias Beardsley - 2021 - Philosophia 50 (2):405-424.
    One version of moral error theory maintains that the central problem with morality is an ontological commitment to irreducible normativity. This paper argues that this version of error theory ultimately depends on an appeal to Ockham’s Razor, and that Ockham’s Razor should not be applied to irreducible normativity. This is because the appeal to Ockham’s Razor always contains an intractable element of epistemic circularity; and if this circularity is not vicious, we can construct a sound argument for the existence of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  17. The Ethics of Religious Belief.Elizabeth Jackson - 2021 - Religious Studies Archives 1 (4):1-10.
    On some religious traditions, there are obligations to believe certain things. However, this leads to a puzzle, since many philosophers think that we cannot voluntarily control our beliefs, and, plausibly, ought implies can. How do we make sense of religious doxastic obligations? The papers in this issue present four responses to this puzzle. The first response denies that we have doxastic obligations at all; the second denies that ought implies can. The third and fourth responses maintain that we have either (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  18. Can Pascal’s rationality rescue the pandemic vaccine?Venkat Ramanan - 2021 - Blue Labyrinths.
    How do you convine someone to take the coronavirus vaccine? This essay argues that we an do so by presenting to them a reasoned argument from theology, namely, Pascal's wager.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Infinite Prospects.Jeffrey Sanford Russell & Yoaav Isaacs - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1):178-198.
    People with the kind of preferences that give rise to the St. Petersburg paradox are problematic---but not because there is anything wrong with infinite utilities. Rather, such people cannot assign the St. Petersburg gamble any value that any kind of outcome could possibly have. Their preferences also violate an infinitary generalization of Savage's Sure Thing Principle, which we call the *Countable Sure Thing Principle*, as well as an infinitary generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's Independence axiom, which we call *Countable (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  20. Surreal Decisions.Eddy Keming Chen & Daniel Rubio - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (1):54-74.
    Although expected utility theory has proven a fruitful and elegant theory in the finite realm, attempts to generalize it to infinite values have resulted in many paradoxes. In this paper, we argue that the use of John Conway's surreal numbers shall provide a firm mathematical foundation for transfinite decision theory. To that end, we prove a surreal representation theorem and show that our surreal decision theory respects dominance reasoning even in the case of infinite values. We then bring our theory (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  21. Pascal, Pascalberg, and friends.Samuel Lebens - 2020 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87 (1):109-130.
    Pascal’s wager has to face the many gods objection. The wager goes wrong when it asks us to chose between Christianity and atheism, as if there are no other options. Some have argued that we’re entitled to dismiss exotic, bizarre, or subjectively unappealing religions from the scope of the wager. But they have provided no satisfying justification for such a radical wager-saving dispensation. This paper fills that dialectical gap. It argues that some agents are blameless or even praiseworthy for ignoring (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  22. Review of The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. [REVIEW]Theron Pummer - 2020 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 8.
  23. Non-Archimedean Preferences Over Countable Lotteries.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - 2020 - Journal of Mathematical Economics 88 (May 2020):180-186.
    We prove a representation theorem for preference relations over countably infinite lotteries that satisfy a generalized form of the Independence axiom, without assuming Continuity. The representing space consists of lexicographically ordered transfinite sequences of bounded real numbers. This result is generalized to preference orders on abstract superconvex spaces.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  24. Decyzje w sytuacjach niepewności normatywnej.Tomasz Żuradzki - 2020 - Przeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 29 (2):53-72.
    Etycy nie poświęcali dotąd wiele uwagi niepewności, koncentrując się często na skrajnie wyidealizowanych hipotetycznych sytuacjach, w których zarówno kwestie empiryczne (np. stan świata, spektrum możliwych decyzji oraz ich konsekwencje, związki przyczynowe między zdarzeniami), jak i normatywne (np. treść norm, skale wartości) były jasno określone i znane podmiotowi. W poniższym artykule – który jest rezultatem projektu dotyczącego różnych typów decyzji w sytuacjach niepewności związanej z postępem w naukach i technologiach biomedycznych – przedstawię analizę sytuacji niepewności normatywnej, czyli takich, w których podmiot (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Salvaging Pascal’s Wager.Elizabeth Jackson & Andrew Rogers - 2019 - Philosophia Christi 21 (1):59-84.
    Many think that Pascal’s Wager is a hopeless failure. A primary reason for this is because a number of challenging objections have been raised to the wager, including the “many gods” objection and the “mixed strategy” objection. We argue that both objections are formal, but not substantive, problems for the wager, and that they both fail for the same reason. We then respond to additional objections to the wager. We show how a version of Pascalian reasoning succeeds, giving us a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  26. Pascal’s Wager.Paul Bartha & Lawrence Pasternack (eds.) - 2018 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal offers the reader an argument that it is rational to strive to believe in God. Philosophical debates about this classic argument have continued until our own times. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of Pascal's Wager, including its theological framework, its place in the history of philosophy, and its importance to contemporary decision theory. The volume starts with a valuable primer on infinity and decision theory for students and non-specialists. A sequence of chapters then (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  27. Pragmatic Encroachment and Theistic Knowledge.Matthew A. Benton - 2018 - In Matthew A. Benton, John Hawthorne & Dani Rabinowitz (eds.), Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 267-287.
    If knowledge is sensitive to practical stakes, then whether one knows depends in part on the practical costs of being wrong. When considering religious belief, the practical costs of being wrong about theism may differ dramatically between the theist (if there is no God) and the atheist (if there is a God). This paper explores the prospects, on pragmatic encroachment, for knowledge of theism (even if true) and of atheism (even if true), given two types of practical costs: namely, by (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  28. Wagering with and without Pascal.Daniel Collette & Joseph Anderson - 2018 - Res Philosophica 95 (1):95-110.
    Pascal’s wager has received the attention of philosophers for centuries. Most of its criticisms arise from how the wager is often framed. We present Pascal’s wager three ways: in isolation from any further apologetic arguments, as leading toward a regimen intended to produce belief, and finally embedded in a larger apology that includes evidence for Christianity. We find that none of the common objections apply when the wager is presented as part of Pascal’s larger project. Pascal’s wager is a successful (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  29. Pascal’s wager and the origins of decision theory: decision-making by real decision-makers.James Franklin - 2018 - In Paul Bartha & Lawrence Pasternack (eds.), Pascal's Wager. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 27-44.
    Pascal’s Wager does not exist in a Platonic world of possible gods, abstract probabilities and arbitrary payoffs. Real decision-makers, such as Pascal’s “man of the world” of 1660, face a range of religious options they take to be serious, with fixed probabilities grounded in their evidence, and with utilities that are fixed quantities in actual minds. The many ingenious objections to the Wager dreamed up by philosophers do not apply in such a real decision matrix. In the situation Pascal addresses, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  30. Cognitive Bias, the Axiological Question and the Epistemic Probability of Theistic Belief.Dan Linford & Jason Megill - 2018 - In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Theistic Beliefs. De Gruyter. pp. 77-92.
    Some recent work in philosophy of religion addresses what can be called the “axiological question,” i.e., regardless of whether God exists, would it be good or bad if God exists? Would the existence of God make the world a better or a worse place? Call the view that the existence of God would make the world a better place “Pro-Theism.” We argue that Pro-Theism is not implausible, and moreover, many Theists, at least, (often implicitly) think that it is true. That (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. Infinity in Pascal's Wager.Graham Oppy - 2018 - In Paul Bartha & Lawrence Pasternack (eds.), Pascal's Wager. Cambridge, UK: pp. 260-77.
    Bartha (2012) conjectures that, if we meet all of the other objections to Pascal’s wager, then the many-Gods objection is already met. Moreover, he shows that, if all other objections to Pascal’s wager are already met, then, in a choice between a Jealous God, an Indifferent God, a Very Nice God, a Very Perverse God, the full range of Nice Gods, the full range of Perverse Gods, and no God, you should wager on the Jealous God. I argue that his (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  32. Wagering on an Ironic God: Pascal on Faith and Philosophy by Thomas S. Hibbs. [REVIEW]Graham Oppy - 2018 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 56 (2):372-373.
    This is a short review of Thomas S. Hibbs' book: *Wagering on an Ironic God: Pascal on Faith and Philosophy*.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. A game-theoretic analysis of pascal’s Wager.Ahmer Tarar - 2018 - Economics and Philosophy 34 (1):31-44.
    Formal analyses of Pascal’s Wager have almost all been decision-theoretic, with a human as the sole decision-maker. This paper analyses Pascal’s Wager in a game-theoretic setting in which the deity whose existence the human is considering wagering on is also a decision-maker. There is an equilibrium in which the human chooses to wager that the deity exists and Pascal’s Wager thus operates, but also one in which the human does not wager. Thus, in a game-theoretic setting, Pascal’s Wager is indeterminate: (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Wagering on Pragmatic Encroachment.Daniel Eaton & Timothy Pickavance - 2017 - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 8:96-117.
    Lately, there has been an explosion of literature exploring the the relationship between one’s practical situation and one’s knowledge. Some involved in this discussion have suggested that facts about a person’s practical situation might affect whether or not a person knows in that situation, holding fixed all the things standardly associated with knowledge (like evidence, the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties, and so on). According to these “pragmatic encroachment” views, then, one’s practical situation encroaches on one’s knowledge. Though we won’t (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  35. Michael Rota, Taking Pascal’s Wager: Faith, Evidence, and the Abundant Life. [REVIEW]Michael T. McFall - 2017 - Teaching Philosophy 40 (1):116-119.
  36. No Exception for Belief.Susanna Rinard - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (1):121-143.
    This paper defends a principle I call Equal Treatment, according to which the rationality of a belief is determined in precisely the same way as the rationality of any other state. For example, if wearing a raincoat is rational just in case doing so maximizes expected value, then believing some proposition P is rational just in case doing so maximizes expected value. This contrasts with the popular view that the rationality of belief is determined by evidential support. It also contrasts (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   81 citations  
  37. Pascal's wager.Michael Rota - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (4):e12404.
    Pascal's wager is an argument in support of religious belief taking its name from the seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal. Unlike more traditional arguments for the existence of God, Pascal's wager is a pragmatic argument, concluding not that God exists but that one should wager for God; that is, one should live as if God exists. After an introduction to the elements of decision theory needed to understand the wager, I discuss the interpretation of Pascal's reasoning in the Infini rien (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  38. A Thoroughly Modern Wager.Michael J. Shaffer - 2017 - Logos and Episteme 8 (2):207-231.
    This paper presents a corrected version of Pascal's wager that makes it consonant with modern decision theory. The corrected wager shows that not committing to God's existence is the rational choice.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  39. From Desire to Conversion: Pascal's Wager and Girard's Mimetic Theory.Joel Hodge - 2016 - Heythrop Journal 57 (3).
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  40. Wagering Against Divine Hiddenness.Elizabeth Jackson - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (4):85-108.
    J.L. Schellenberg argues that divine hiddenness provides an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist, for if God existed he would not allow non-resistant non-belief to occur, but non-resistant non-belief does occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I argue that the stakes involved in theistic considerations put pressure on Schellenberg’s premise that non-resistant non-belief occurs. First, I specify conditions for someone’s being a resistant non-believer. Then, I argue that many people fulfill these conditions because, given (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  41. Pragmatic decisions about god from different points of view: the costs of apostasy.Cei Maslen - 2016 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 80 (2):103-113.
    Pascal, with his famous wager, argued in favour of religious practice and faith by appeal to expected payoffs. Here I discuss an asymmetry in similar pragmatic arguments for decisions about God. I begin with the observation that apostates pay costs not shared by those who never adopt a religion in the first place. Noticing this asymmetry shows these arguments from a new perspective and may also contribute to an explanation of the endurance of religion.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. A Better Version of Pascal’s Wager.Michael Rota - 2016 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (3):415-439.
    The standard version of Pascal’s Wager suffers from serious problems. In this paper I present a modified version of a Wager-style argument that avoids several of the most serious objections to the standard version, viz., the objections of Duff and Hájek relating to infinite utilities, moral objections concerning the use of pragmatic considerations, and the many-gods objection. I argue that a serious commitment to living a Christian life is rational (and the failure to make such a commitment is irrational) if (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  43. Taking Pascal's wager: faith, evidence, and the abundant life.Michael Rota - 2016 - Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, an imprint of Intervarsity Press.
    In part one of this book I argue for the conditional claim that if Christianity has at least a 50% epistemic probability, then it is rational to commit to living a Christian life (and irrational not to). This claim is supported by a contemporary version of Pascal's wager. In part two, I then proceed to argue that Christianity does have at least a 50% epistemic probability, by advancing versions of the cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, and historical arguments for the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  44. Napad na Pascala.Nick Bostrom - 2015 - Analiza I Egzystencja 31:135-138.
    Gdzieś w ciemnej uliczce... Bandyta: Ej ty, dawaj portfel! Pascal: A niby dlaczego miałbym to zrobić? Bandyta: Bo w przeciwnym razie cię zastrzelę. Pascal: Ale przecież nie masz broni. Bandyta: A niech to! Wiedziałem, że zapomniałem o czymś. Pascal: No to zapomnij też o moim portfelu. Miłego wieczoru. Bandyta: Stój! Pascal: Co znowu? Bandyta: Jest interes do zrobienia... Co ty na to, żebyś jednak oddał mi portfel? W zamian obiecuję przyjść do ciebie jutro i dać ci dwukrotność kwoty, którą w (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. On the Validity of Pascal's Wager.Antony Aumann - 2014 - Heythrop Journal 55 (1):86-93.
    Recent scholarship has shown that the success of Pascal’s wager rests on precarious grounds. To avoid notorious problems, it must appeal to considerations such as what probability we assign to the existence of various gods and what religion we think provides the greatest happiness in this life. Rational judgments concerning these matters are subject to change over time. Some claim that the wager therefore cannot support a steadfast commitment to God. I argue that this conclusion does not follow. By drawing (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. Animal Interrupted, or Why Accepting Pascal's Wager Might Be the Last Thing You Ever Do.Sam Baron & Christina Dyke - 2014 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 52 (S1):109-133.
    According to conventionalist accounts of personal identity, persons are constituted in part by practices and attitudes of certain sorts of care. In this paper, we concentrate on the most well-developed and defended version of conventionalism currently on offer (namely, that proposed by David Braddon-Mitchell, Caroline West, and Kristie Miller) and discuss how the conventionalist appears forced either (1) to accept arbitrariness concerning from which perspective to judge one's survival or (2) to maintain egalitarianism at the cost of making “transfiguring” decisions (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  47. A Modern Pascal's Wager for Mass Electronic Surveillance.D. Danks - 2014 - Télos 2014 (169):155-161.
    Debates about the moral permissibility of mass electronic surveillance often turn on whether consequentialist considerations legitimately trump relevant deontological rights and principles. In order to establish such overriding consequences, many proponents of mass surveillance employ a modern analogue of Pascal’s wager: they contend that the consequences of no surveillance are so severe that any probability of such outcomes legitimates the abrogation of the relevant rights. In this paper, I briefly review Pascal’s original wager about whether to live a pious life, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. The Enigma Of Probability.Nick Ergodos - 2014 - Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics 2 (1):37-71.
    Using “brute reason” I will show why there can be only one valid interpretation of probability. The valid interpretation turns out to be a further refinement of Popper’s Propensity interpretation of probability. Via some famous probability puzzles and new thought experiments I will show how all other interpretations of probability fail, in particular the Bayesian interpretations, while these puzzles do not present any difficulties for the interpretation proposed here. In addition, the new interpretation casts doubt on some concepts often taken (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  49. Winning counterterrorism's version of Pascal's wager, but struggling to open the purse.Brian J. Gibbs - 2014 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (4):368-369.
    Lankford’s (2013) essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford’s data. However, I question the success of his follow-on arguments about beauty and goodness.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. The Wager Renewed: Believing in God is Good for You. [REVIEW]Justin P. McBrayer - 2014 - Science, Religion and Culture 1 (3):130.
    Not all of our reasons for belief are epistemic in nature. Some of our reasons for belief are prudential in the sense that believing a certain thing advances our personal goals. When it comes to belief in God, the most famous formulation of a prudential reason for belief is Pascal’s Wager. And although Pascal’s Wager fails, its failure is instructive. Pascal’s Wager fails because it relies on unjustified assumptions about what happens in the afterlife to those who believe in God (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
1 — 50 / 213