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Pascal's Wager

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008)

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  1. The multifaceted role of imagination in science and religion. A critical examination of its epistemic, creative and meaning-making functions.Ingrid Malm Lindberg - 2021 - Dissertation, Uppsala University
    The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine critically and discuss the role of imagination in science and religion, with particular emphasis on its possible epistemic, creative, and meaning-making functions. In order to answer my research questions, I apply theories and concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind on scientific and religious practices. This framework allows me to explore the mental state of imagination, not as an isolated phenomenon but, rather, as one of many mental states that co-exist and interplay (...)
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  • Fictionalism of Anticipation.Raimundas Vidunas - 2021 - Biosemiotics 14 (1):181-197.
    A promising recent approach for understanding complex phenomena is recognition of anticipatory behavior of living organisms and social organizations. The anticipatory, predictive action permits learning, novelty seeking, rich experiential existence. I argue that the established frameworks of anticipation, adaptation or learning imply overly passive roles of anticipatory agents, and that a fictionalist standpoint reflects the core of anticipatory behavior better than representational or future references. Cognizing beings enact not just their models of the world, but own make-believe existential agendas as (...)
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  • How to Treat Machines that Might Have Minds.Nicholas Agar - 2020 - Philosophy and Technology 33 (2):269-282.
    This paper offers practical advice about how to interact with machines that we have reason to believe could have minds. I argue that we should approach these interactions by assigning credences to judgements about whether the machines in question can think. We should treat the premises of philosophical arguments about whether these machines can think as offering evidence that may increase or reduce these credences. I describe two cases in which you should refrain from doing as your favored philosophical view (...)
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  • 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 (...)
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  • Pascal’s wager and the origins of decision theory: decision-making by real decision-makers.James Franklin - 2018 - In Paul F. A. Bartha & Lawrence Pasternack (eds.), Pascal’s Wager. New York: 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, (...)
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  • Know How and Acts of Faith.Paulina Sliwa - 2018 - In Matthew A. Benton, John Hawthorne & Dani Rabinowitz (eds.), Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 246-263.
    My topic in this paper is the nature of faith. Much of the discussion concerning the nature of faith proceeds by focussing on the relationship between faith and belief. In this paper, I explore a different approach. I suggest that we approach the question of what faith involves by focussing on the relationship between faith and action. When we have faith, we generally manifest it in how we act; we perform acts of faith: we share our secrets, rely on other’s (...)
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  • Pascal’s wager: tracking an intended reader in the structure of the argument.Iva SVAČINOVÁ - 2016 - Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal 6 (2):391-412.
    Pascal’s wager is the name of an argument in favor of belief in God presented by Blaise Pascal in §233 of Thoughts. Ian Hacking (1972) pointed out that Pascal’s text involves three different versions of the argument. This paper proceeds from this identification, but it concerns an examination of the rhetorical strategy realized by Pascal’s argumentation. The final form of Pascal’s argument is considered as a product that could be established only through a specific process of persuasion led with respect (...)
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  • 'Is Cryonics an Ethical Means of Life Extension?'.Rebekah Cron - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Exeter
    This dissertation discusses several ethical and moral issues which arise from the cryonics movement. Within each section, the question is posed: how does that problem impact on how we should think about cryonics? Is cryonics morally permissible and/or morally obligatory? Issues include a consideration of economic resource allocation, bodily ownership and identity.
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  • Prove it! The Burden of Proof Game in Science vs. Pseudoscience Disputes.Massimo Pigliucci & Maarten Boudry - 2014 - Philosophia 42 (2):487-502.
    The concept of burden of proof is used in a wide range of discourses, from philosophy to law, science, skepticism, and even in everyday reasoning. This paper provides an analysis of the proper deployment of burden of proof, focusing in particular on skeptical discussions of pseudoscience and the paranormal, where burden of proof assignments are most poignant and relatively clear-cut. We argue that burden of proof is often misapplied or used as a mere rhetorical gambit, with little appreciation of the (...)
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  • Complex Expectations.Alan Hájek & Harris Nover - 2008 - Mind 117 (467):643 - 664.
    In our 2004, we introduced two games in the spirit of the St Petersburg game, the Pasadena and Altadena games. As these latter games lack an expectation, we argued that they pose a paradox for decision theory. Terrence Fine has shown that any finite valuations for the Pasadena, Altadena, and St Petersburg games are consistent with the standard decision-theoretic axioms. In particular, one can value the Pasadena game above the other two, a result that conflicts with both our intuitions and (...)
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  • Pascalian Expectations and Explorations.Alan Hajek & Elizabeth Jackson - forthcoming - In Roger Ariew & Yuval Avnur (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Pascal. Wiley-Blackwell.
    Pascal’s Wager involves expected utilities. In this chapter, we examine the Wager in light of two main features of expected utility theory: utilities and probabilities. We discuss infinite and finite utilities, and zero, infinitesimal, extremely low, imprecise, and undefined probabilities. These have all come up in recent literature regarding Pascal’s Wager. We consider the problems each creates and suggest prospects for the Wager in light of these problems.
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  • Cryonics: Traps and transformations.Daniel Story - 2024 - Bioethics 38 (4):351-355.
    Cryonics is the practice of cryopreserving the bodies or brains of legally dead individuals with the hope that these individuals will be reanimated in the future. A standard argument for cryonics says that cryonics is prudentially justified despite uncertainty about its success because at worst it will leave you no worse off than you otherwise would have been had you not chosen cryonics, and at best it will leave you much better off than you otherwise would have been. Thus, it (...)
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  • Trust me, I'm a Priest! : Justifying Epistemic Trust in Religious Authorities.Evelina Edfors - unknown
    In this thesis I argue that epistemic trust in religious authorities is different from epistemic trust in other kinds of authorities because God disturbs the two-party relationship between trustee and truster. I reach this conclusion by first examining the nature of epistemic trust in authorities and how it is justifiable to practice this kind of trust. I then compare these findings to the nature of epistemic trust in religious authorities and see that the general justification for epistemic trust in authorities (...)
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  • Locke and Leibniz on the Balance of Reasons.Markku Roinila - 2013 - In Dana Riesenfeld & Giovanni Scarafile (eds.), Perspectives on Theory of Controversies and the Ethics of Communication: Explorations of Marcelo Dascal's Contributions to Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 49-57.
    One of the features of John Locke’s moral philosophy is the idea that morality is based on our beliefs concerning the future good. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II, xxi, §70, Locke argues that we have to decide between the probability of afterlife and our present temptations. In itself, this kind of decision model is not rare in Early Modern philosophy. Blaise Pascal’s Wager is a famous example of a similar idea of balancing between available options which Marcelo Dascal (...)
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  • On the irrationality of mind-uploading: a rely to Neil Levy. [REVIEW]Nicholas Agar - 2012 - AI and Society 27 (4):431-436.
    In a paper in this journal, Neil Levy challenges Nicholas Agar’s argument for the irrationality of mind-uploading. Mind-uploading is a futuristic process that involves scanning brains and recording relevant information which is then transferred into a computer. Its advocates suppose that mind-uploading transfers both human minds and identities from biological brains into computers. According to Agar’s original argument, mind-uploading is prudentially irrational. Success relies on the soundness of the program of Strong AI—the view that it may someday be possible to (...)
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  • Evidentialism in action.A. K. Flowerree - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (11):3409-3426.
    Sometimes it is practically beneficial to believe what is epistemically unwarranted. Philosophers have taken these cases to raise the question are there practical reasons for belief? Evidentialists argue that there cannot be any such reasons. Putative practical reasons for belief are not reasons for belief, but reasons to manage our beliefs in a particular way. Pragmatists are not convinced. They accept that some reasons for belief are practical. The debate, it is widely thought, is at an impasse. But this debate (...)
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  • Betting Against Compatibilism.Göran Duus-Otterström - 2010 - Res Publica 16 (4):383-396.
    Some argue that libertarianism represents the riskier incompatibilist view when it comes to the free will problem. An ethically cautious incompatibilist should bet that we are not free in the sense required for moral responsibility, these theorists claim, as doing so means that we no longer run the risk of holding the morally innocent responsible. In this paper, I show that the same reasoning also advises us to bet against compatibilism. Supposing that we are unsure about whether or not the (...)
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  • Taking taniwha seriously.Justine Kingsbury - 2022 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 1 (2):1-15.
    Taniwha are powerful water creatures in te ao Māori (the Māori world/worldview). Taniwha sometimes affect public works in Aotearoa New Zealand: for example, consultation between government agencies and tangata whenua (the people of the land) about proposed roading developments sometimes results in the route being moved to avoid the dwelling place of a taniwha. Mainstream media responses have tended to be hostile or mocking, as you might expect, since on the face of it the dominant western scientific worldview has no (...)
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  • Pascal. Entre la geometría y la filosofía natural.Carlos M. Madrid Casado - 2019 - Metatheoria – Revista de Filosofía E Historia de la Ciencia 10:27--44.
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  • The persecutor's Wager.Craig Duncan - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (1):1-50.
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  • Believe in Pascal's Wager? Have I Got a Deal for You!Alexander Tabarrok - 2000 - Theory and Decision 48 (2):123-128.
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  • Pascal’s and Tabarrok’s Wagers.Lars Peter Østerdal - 2004 - Theory and Decision 57 (1):1-4.
    In a recent paper A. Tabarrok [Believe in Pascal’s Wager? Have I Got a Deal for You!, Theory and Decision 48, 123--128, 2000] argued that a believer who accepts Pascal’s Wager should in addition accept payment of any given fee in return for a given increase in the probability of reaching God. However the conclusion is obtained from manipulations of infinities which are not valid in an expected utility model. In this note, an alternative model is formulated in which Tabarrok’s (...)
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  • The Black Hole Challenge: Precaution, Existential Risks and the Problem of Knowledge Gaps.Christian Munthe - 2019 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 22 (1):49-60.
    So-called ‘existential risks’ present virtually unlimited reasons for probing them and responses to them further. The ensuing normative pull to respond to such risks thus seems to present us with r...
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  • بررسی تمایز ماهوی «برهان شرط‌بندی پاسکال» و «حدیث محاجّۀ امام علیه‌السلام و ابن أبی‌العوجاء» و نتایج فلسفی و کلامی آن.جعفر مروارید & وحید مهدوی مهر - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Theological Research 20 (76):21-40.
    استدلالِ شرط‌بندی پاسکال، به عنوان یکی از استدلال‌های مشهور بر اثبات وجود خداوند و یا دست‌کم، لزومِ ایمان به خدا، همواره در معرض بحث و بررسی‌های فراوان بوده است. این استدلال در فضای فکری جهان اسلام نیز مطرح بوده و از طریق امام محمد غزالی، به ائمه اطهار نسبت داده شده است. دقت در صورت‌بندی این استدلال آن‌گونه که پاسکال ارائه داده است و نص‌حدیثی که می‌توان آن را ریشۀ این استدلال تلقی کرد، نشان می‌دهد که این دو، تفاوت‌های بنیادین (...)
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