Pascal's Wager Argument

[hecd2]

In the absence of the nineteen proofs, one must still choose between God and no God. The fate of one’s immortal soul vastly outweighs any reason for choosing nothingness over eternal life. You have not answered this argument at all.

I wonder if you ever consider what begging the question means?

And you will find hope, on one’s deathbed, to be the most persuasive argument of all!

Perhaps - it would be foolhardy to say that such a thing would never happen - but I don’t generally take well to the argumentum ad baculum.

Alec

 

[Charlemagne_II]

hecd2

I wonder if you ever consider what begging the question means?

I do know what it means. It’s what you are doing when you choose no God without one rational proof that there is no God.

but I don’t generally take well to the argumentum ad baculum.

Whatever on earth do you mean? Nobody’s forcing you to believe … not even God…

If your wife tells you to love her or she will leave you … and you refuse to love her … and she leaves you … you have no one to blame but yourself … not the argumentum ad baculum.

 

[LifeIsAbsurd]

If we believe and [the Catholic] God exists, we have acted in our best interest.

I fully agree.

If we do not believe and [the Catholic] God exists, we have lost everything.

I partially agree.

We have lost everything only if (a) all non-believers go to Hell and (b) Hell is a lake of fire where you burn for all eternity or other extreme unpleasantness.

I’ve noticed when attempting to convert, Catholics hold these to be true. I’ve noticed when attempting to hold onto believers they’re more likely to say that people like Ghandi, those who spent their lives helping others, people never exposed to the bible, and loved ones: (a) may be saved after the refining fire of Purgatory or (b) Hell is not really a literal lake of fire but merely a continuation of separation from God.

If we believe and [the Catholic] God does not exist, we have lost nothing.

I fully disagree. In this case, by believing in the God delusion, Catholics accept many limits on their lives. They have to avoid doing some things they otherwise would enjoy. Married couples incapable of the official marital embrace and homosexuals are supposed to live chaste lives instead of the pleasure of being with one another. A 10% tithe is supposed to be paid to the church–and on my salary, that’s alot of vacations. Courtesans and second wives have to remain secret due to morality laws, and then you have Catholics who can’t stop ‘sinning’ and feel guilty about living the way they want to.

Of course, if you’re the fairly common ‘Christian’ who pays no tithe, does what they want throughout the week, and then makes up on Sundays… you’re not missing much!

But a non-believer comes out ahead of a believer in this case.

By the way, Pascal, or your paraphrase of him, missed an important case:

If we worship the CATHOLIC GOD and some OTHER GOD exists, you may incur the wrath of a jealous God, or simply fall afoul of his rules and preferences, and “lose everything”.

 

[LifeIsAbsurd]

Dawkin’s says this about Pascal’s Wager:

“Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it’s not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can actually make me believe it if I don’t. Pascal’s Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning a belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he’d see through the deception.”

That’s an interesting point. Even if Pascal’s Wager convinced someone that believing in the Catholic God was in their best interest, it can’t convince them to actually believe in the Catholic God.

 

[PRmerger]

No distinction - they are the same thing and I am using them synonymously.

That is good. For it does sound as if you’re contrasting them here (that is, the 19 arguments are reasoned BUT the PW is rational)

I apologize if I misunderstood.

Not sure I can say any more other than the explanation that I gave in my previous post but I’ll try once more. Since most of the arguments for God (the other 19 in Kreeft’s list for example) are based on reasoned approaches to demonstrate the truth of the proposition “God exists” *and *the **PW is not such a reasoned approach **to demonstrate a truth **but **an attempt at a **rational **basis for placing a bet on an unknown and unprovable outcome *then *the PW is fundamentally a different class of argument from the others.

I am glad, then, that we are agreed that all 20 arguments proferred are reasonable and/or rational.

Therefore, there is not a fundamental difference.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

LifeIsAbsurd
*
By the way, Pascal, or your paraphrase of him, missed an important case:

If we worship the CATHOLIC GOD and some OTHER GOD exists, you may incur the wrath of a jealous God, or simply fall afoul of his rules and preferences, and “lose everything”. *

Unfortunately for you, this will be the case no which which “god” prevails.

But a non-believer comes out ahead of a believer in this case.

If God exists, the unbeliever cannot come out ahead.

The notion that the believer comes out behind because he practices his faith is not anything you can prove. It is just as likely (more likely) that his faith will give him dimensions of happiness which the atheist cannot enjoy. Of course, as a Catholic I cannot prove this to an atheist because the atheist has shut himself off from all the spiritual benefits of knowing and loving God.

 

[PRmerger]

Well, I am surprised by the fact that you feel confident to speak on behalf of ALL other believers, and you’ll pardon me if I doubt the truth of your assertion, particularly since the PW isn’t an argument for the existence of God at all.

Fair enough.

I challenge you, then, to find even* one* reasonable believer who’s willing to assert that she used PW solely to come to belief.

Even one would be sufficient to challenge my premise.

 

[PRmerger]

It would be redundant because if you are persuaded that the proposition “God exists” is true by one or more of the 19 then you don’t need a wager on His existence.

That’s like saying, “I don’t need to bring my wife flowers because she’s been persuaded that I love her a long time ago.”

Bringing flowers is just one more example that you do love her, right? It’s not the best example, but it’s still worth it, no?

Because it is not an argument for the metaphysical truth of God’s existence and it didn’t end up as #20 on Kreeft’s list by accident. To put PW in gross terms it goes like this: “So buddy, you’re not convinced, despite all these arguments, that I’ve successfully demonstrated that God exists. Fine - let’s accept that we can’t prove His existence one way or the other. Well, if I were you, I’d act as if I believe in him anyway, because if you don’t and He does exist then really bad things might happen to you, whereas if you do and He doesn’t it’s no skin off your nose.” You see, PW is not an argument for the truth of a proposition but an argument about how to act in the absence of a metaphysical belief in order to maximise the probability of good outcomes.

Nothing here that I disagree with.

Which is exactly why there is no obligation for it to stand alone, as you originally proposed.

Originally Posted by hecd2
Either the other 19 work and PW is not needed; or PW is needed, but must therefore stand on its own.

Now I have explained the case to the best of my ability and if you still disagree we’ll have to leave it there.

This is curious that you’re willing to leave the discussion, when it’s just getting interesting!

 

[PRmerger]

There is a difference in saying “I believe,” and actually believing. Would God accept me if I lived a life of belief, only because it was the “smart” choice?

In the end, it’s not really about whether God “accepts” you, but whether you’ll accept God, no?

For, as we already know, God does “accept” you!

 

[The_Exodus]

I think this picture is psychologically true to how people think, although not strictly defensible in purely logical terms (for if the 19 are insufficient to compel belief then they should have no influence on the decision to assent to PW as they have already been rejected as flawed or fallacious in some way).

If the 19 are insufficient to compel belief, they may not necessarily be seen to be fallacious or flawed. The one examining the arguments may be genuinely agnostic about them: she may see how they could possibly be true or possibly be false. In this case, I think PW is a good, practical argument for such a person. In my mind it is quite reasonable to move the mind to one of two opposite propositions if neither are compelling nor obviously fallacious, and if the one proposition offers a potential infinite gain and the other proposition offers nothing.
hec:

But I think Pascal developed PW to be effective also in cases where the 19 are wholly unpersuasive and in such a case the argument has to stand on its own. And returning to my original points, not only is it a poor argument for arriving at belief, but also a poor argument for willing to act as though one believed in the proposition of God’s existence (which we agree is its purpose) for the reasons I laid out in earlier posts.

The arguments for God’s existence, according to the wager, neither compel the mind to assent or dissent. You are assuming that, if an argument does not compel the mind to assent, it is therefore seen by the mind as automatically fallacious, which I do not think follows. The arguments may be thought of as “maybe true, maybe false,” and genuine agnosticism may pervade one’s view.
hec:

By the way, I also think that most people who live by PW or some internal informal version of it do not think deeply about the metaphysical arguments for the existence of God - that’s a personal observation and I have no reference in support of it or further proof for it.

I tend to agree. I’m not sure how possible it is to will to believe what the mind finds inherently faulty, though I do think it possible to bend the mind to assent to a proposition which does not compel or repel it.

Besides this point, I think that there are rational arguments that demonstrate the existence of God, and would appeal to them before the wager. The wager, I think, is much more practical and has more to do with one’s personal behavior, once one is already religious.

Thank you for your post and observations. It was a delight to read.

 

[PRmerger]

I fully disagree. In this case, by believing in the God delusion, Catholics accept many limits on their lives.

This prompts a few questions, LifeIsAbsurd:

Do you believe that moral atheists accept many limits on their lives?

That is, have you, as a moral atheist/agnostic, avoided doing something you might otherwise enjoy because you deemed it to be immoral?

 

[LifeIsAbsurd]

Charlemagne II:

LifeIsAbsurd:

By the way, Pascal, or your paraphrase of him, missed an important case:

If we worship the CATHOLIC GOD and some OTHER GOD exists, you may incur the wrath of a jealous God, or simply fall afoul of his rules and preferences, and “lose everything”.

Unfortunately for you, this will be the case no which which “god” prevails.

Not at all. I may fare much better than you!

Suppose it turns out the TrueGod™ is angry at those who worship other gods, and you face an eternity of being farted upon by porcupines! Or, suppose the TrueGod™ favors most those who fully enjoy the gifts he’s bestowed upon us–i.e. logic and the senses. Or, suppose the TrueGod™ doesn’t care what you say in confessional but only what you do–how many good acts you’ve personally performed in your lifetime.

God may exist and Catholics may be treated worse by him than unbelievers.

If God exists, the unbeliever cannot come out ahead.

I’ve presented several cases where God exists and unbelievers come out ahead of Catholics.

If you have to assume the Catholic God is the only possible God for Pascal’s Wager to be an effective argument, then his argument is inherently flawed.

 

[In_Spiration]

hecd2,

I haven’t read the rest of the thread, but I owe a response to the first. I hope to get around to the rest. Keep in mind, though, that I’m just focusing on the epistemic aspects here. I don’t intend any of this to necessarily support PW.

Fine, but this is not a description of belief, but the process of arriving at a decision to act in the absence of a belief in the truth of a proposition

The very decision to act is often the decision to find or believe in propositions which support the proposition one desires to believe. In Ginet’s example, he says “I decide to …] believe that I did lock it,” or in other words, he chooses to accept the proposition.

• in this case, since I cannot remember, then I have no reason to believe that I have or have not locked the door, so I cannot assert a belief either in the proposition or its negation,

Isn’t this precisely what’s at issue? What reasons do you have for the claim that someone who has no (though, isn’t it more like “is not aware of any”?) supporting reasons for p is unable to mentally commit to p (or not-p)? I’ll toss up a couple prime facie legitimate examples:

B, a basketball player, is about to play a one-on-one game against A, another basketball player, whom most consider the favorite. Before the game, B wants to pump himself up and get into a mind-frame that’s most conducive to his success; and since he’s aware of the benefits of positive-thinking, he wants to legitimately believe that he will come out victorious. He entertains the proposition p, ‘I am going to beat A’ (or ‘When the game is over, I will have won’) and then searches for reasons in support or opposition to it.

Scenario 1: He has no reasons for or against p. (I find this highly implausible.)
Scenario 2: He has an equal opposite reason for every favorable one (at least 2 total).

In (1), I don’t see why his will couldn’t push his intellect into a state of belief, at least weakly. I’m assuming that the will operates by moving toward what the intellect recognizes goodness in; i.e., the will is oriented to the good. The intellect holds an intention [for any x, x is an understood intention =df x is a possible/unrealized end], then it recognizes potential goodness in its actualization, so it seeks out the means. One means to x is the belief in p, which would clearly help toward realizing x, meaning there’s obviously some (instrumental) goodness in p. The will tends to p-as-means-to-x and forces B into a state of belief.

In (2), B is, at least subconsciously, aware of or presented with all the possible reasons for/against p. He deliberately chooses to focus his attention only, or mostly, on the positive reasons while actively ignoring the negative ones. Thus he arrives at belief in p.

Or:

C has cancer. He knows all about the positive effects of an optimistic outlook, so he searches solely through research that would help him believe he’ll survive, while turning a blind eye to any research that looks like it could convince him otherwise. (He really likes this guy.) Eventually he comes to believe he’s going to make it. (But since he tries the “natural” cure, he nevertheless dies, naturally.)

C’s first intention: survival; instrumental means: belief in p.
C’s subsequent intention: belief in p; instrumental means: belief in all propositions which support p + ignorance of all props that might weaken p.

I think cases of voluntary self-deception in general are relevant as well. It seems that people often can be subconsciously aware of uncomfortable truths, often because they choose to keep such truths hidden from their conscious awareness, and this allows them to occasionally live pragmatically. (Hey we’re only discussing epistemology here, not virtue epistemology.) Evidence.

To be CONTINUED.

 

[In_Spiration]

And we’re back!

and my decision to act is based on matters which are extraneous to the truth of the proposition (viz the inconvenience of turning back assessed against the probability of someone intruding through the possibly unlocked door).

Rationalization isn’t very hard. You think up a possible reason that has even the slightest “justifying” connection to a belief b, then you keep making loose connections until you manage to accept cumulative support or else you’ve based a loose chain of props on a belief you already have. “The fact my wife wasn’t nagging me about not locking a door when we left suggests it was locked, and she probably checked without remembering.” Or “I don’t remember locking it; but then again, only a moron wouldn’t lock up before a long trip, and I’m no moron…”

So this is not a description of a process to arrive at a belief, but a process to arrive at a decision to act in the absence of a belief. As far as I can see, this does not negate my claim that you cannot genuinely believe in a proposition by an act of will - in this example, there is no genuine belief in the proposition of the locked door - merely a decision to act as though the door were locked.

I’m saying that the “decision to act” just is the decision to believe. Isn’t believing at least sometimes an act of an agent, an act that’s not entirely left up to a passive intellect. Wouldn’t an “ethics of belief” be out of place if there’s no free moral agency behind it?

Surely this is only relevant to beliefs, where holding the belief has an influence over the truth of the proposition. Surely believing or not in God has no influence over the truth of the proposition.

I take belief to be a mental assertion/reliance/faith in a proposition or judgment. The act of belief b is the acceptance of proposition p (‘The door is locked’). The belief doesn’t change whether the door is in fact locked, but it is practical for helping me through the road trip. I agree that no theist should maintain that his belief can serve as a truth-maker for God’s existence.

this essay hardly supports the concept of willing to believe *in the absence of evidence, reasonable extrapolation of evidence or reason to accept authority, *none of which are relevant to Pascal’s argument. Isn’t Clifford one of the prime exponents of the need to base beliefs on evidence?

I think a conditionally limited version of doxastic voluntarism is plausible, and I don’t see why utter lack of evidence is relevant, assuming you take ‘evidence’ to mean supporting beliefs/knowledge/propositions.

Isn’t a proposition a possibly true judgment? Perhaps possibility itself is enough. What does one recognize in a prop that allows him to recognize it as possible, or as a “live option” in the first place?

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

 

[LifeIsAbsurd]

This prompts a few questions, LifeIsAbsurd:
Do you believe that moral atheists accept many limits on their lives?

That depends on the atheist. Atheists are joined in their lack of belief in deities, not in whether they adopt a moral code, or which particular moral code they adopt.

as a moral atheist/agnostic

I claimed to be an agnostic atheist. I didn’t claim to be moral.

[H]ave you… avoided doing something you might otherwise enjoy because you deemed it to be immoral?

No, I can’t say that I have, at least as I think back over recent months.

Many years ago, I avoided a tricky business practice, but not because I felt it was wrong, rather because I was raised to always be honest. The trick later became accepted as a standard business practice.

Nowadays I choose my own actions.

 

[In_Spiration]

PW clearly has a lot of implications related to William James and truth according to Pragmatism:

Any idea upon which we can ride …; any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor; is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally. (1907: 34)

This might be taken to suggest that beliefs are made true by the fact that they enable us to make accurate predictions of the future run of experience, but other passages suggest that the ‘goodness of belief’ can take other forms. James assures us that it can contribute to the truth of a theological proposition that it has ‘a value for concrete life’ (1907: 40); and this can occur because the idea of God possesses a majesty which can ‘yield religious comfort to a most respectable class of minds’ (1907: 40). This suggests that a belief can be made true by the fact that holding it contributes to our happiness and fulfillment.

The kind of passages just noted may lend support to Bertrand Russell’s famous objection that James is committed to the truth of ‘Santa Claus exists’ (Russell 1949: 772). This is unfair; at best, James is committed to the claim that the happiness that belief in Santa Claus provides is truth-relevant. James could say that the belief was ‘good for so much’ but it would only be ‘wholly true’ if it did not ‘clash with other vital benefits’. It is easy to see that, unless it is somehow insulated from the broader effects of acting upon it, belief in Santa Claus could lead to a host of experiential surprises and disappointments.

A pragmatist might argue that PW establishes the truth of a belief in God. Perhaps he’d say: the intellect is in the dark on this dispute, but one thing we do know is that the will necessarily seeks the highest good; and the will desires perfect happiness, therefore, what gives us this good is true, and what is most likely to give us this good (best at ensuring it) is more true than all other alternatives.

Kant made some sort of onto-ethical argument, concluding that God is a morally necessary postulate. He takes the highest, most perfect good to be a happiness that follows by necessity from flawless virtue. Further, according to his ethical system, there is a moral requirement for each man to attain the perfect good, to rightly pursue the highest end. ‘Ought’ imples ‘can’, so this perfect good (virtue inseparable from happiness) must be possible. But such a good is only possible if the natural order is part of an even greater moral order, one that could guarantee happiness from good character; and such a moral necessity is not possible unless we postulate that God exists. So we must have faith in God, or else we fall into immorality and whatnot.

I’ll go out on a limb and guess hecd2 isn’t a big fan of pragmatism. Neither am I. Yet it seems oddly tough to pin down at the same time, especially without appealing to “intuition” or “self-evidence”. How does one disprove it without begging the question? What is a higher value, truth or goodness, if either? If the transcendentals – being, unity, truth, goodness – are inseparable, then could one draw conclusions about what’s true based on what’s good?

 

[PRmerger]

I claimed to be an agnostic atheist. I didn’t claim to be moral.

Fair enough.

No, I can’t say that I have, at least as I think back over recent months.

Based on your above denial of being moral, this comment is, then, irrelevant, eh?

That makes me wonder, however:
-do you find waiting in line pleasurable?
-do you eat whatever and whenever you want?
-do you walk by an old lady who’s fallen down?
-do you only go to work when it’s pleasurable?
-do you take someone’s food that you think looks better than yours in a restaurant?
-in fact, do you take whatever you want because you want it, even if you can’t afford it?

Nowadays I choose my own actions.

Of course. As do all Christians.

 

[LifeIsAbsurd]

Fair enough.

Based on your above denial of being moral, this comment is, then, irrelevant, eh?

Aye.

That makes me wonder, however:
-do you find waiting in line pleasurable?

Sometimes.

-do you eat whatever and whenever you want?

No.

-do you walk by an old lady who’s fallen down?

No.

-do you only go to work when it’s pleasurable?

Yes.

-do you take someone’s food that you think looks better than yours in a restaurant?

No.

-in fact, do you take whatever you want because you want it, even if you can’t afford it?

No.

To finish off your list, I’ve commited no murders nor robberies this week, and gave away a little over $5,000.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

If you accept PW as being valid how do you then decide on which religion to follow? It isn’t simply a choice between atheism or theism, or atheism and Catholicism. Can you perhaps attempt to use comparative religion to assign a probability to the most dominant religions and then calculate the expected value? You might even consider the possibility of practicing two or more religions. A good “once saved, always saved” Baptist wouldn’t lose anything by switching to Judaism or Islam for example. You would want to cover as many possibilities as you could. It is like a roulette wheel where you want to place your money on the slots that give you the best chance of winning. It leaves a lot of possibilities, but of course it goes without saying you would never place any money on atheism.

How do you think God will treat you if you are only Baptists/Catholic/Buddhist because it has the highest probability of returning a good payoff?

 

[LifeIsAbsurd]

It is like a roulette wheel where you want to place your money on the slots that give you the best chance of winning. It leaves a lot of possibilities, but of course it goes without saying you would never place any money on atheism.

I agree with most of your post, but that doesn’t follow. In post #52 I argue God may exist and Catholics may be treated worse by him than unbelievers. And if God doesn’t exist, atheists come out ahead.

How do you think God will treat you if you are only Baptists/Catholic/Buddhist because it has the highest probability of returning a good payoff?

The other flaw. You may be able to convince me it’s in my best interest to believe the Earth is the center of the solar system–eg, if I say otherwise the church may burn me at the stake, but you can’t make me actually believe it.