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Pascal, Pascalberg, and friends

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Abstract

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 all but one religion as they face the wager. The argument leads us to multiple Pascals: a Jewish one, a Christian one, a Muslim one, and more.

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Notes

  1. Indeed, the presence of infinite value in Pascal’s wager allegedly renders his argument invalid (Hájek 2003). The notion that decision theory breaks down in the presence of infinite values is even more vividly illustrated by an argument that could be called Pascal’s Revenge (see Hájek 2015); according to this argument, Pascal’s wager-argument is invalid, but any positive credence whatsoever towards its premises, even if our credence is infinitesimally low, entails that every single action receives an infinite expected utility (but for considerations in favour of the infinite-value version of the wager, see Jackson and Rogers 2019).

  2. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}25} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}500,012.50 \).

  3. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}50 \).

  4. To substantiate these claims Rota cites: McCullough et al. (2000, 2001), Stark and Finke (2000), Krueger et al. (2009), Newport et al. (2010), Lim (2012), Newport et al. (2012), Lim and Putnam (2012) and selected chapters from Koenig et al. (2012).

  5. So long as the Christian never finds out that she was wrong, and so long as there’s no afterlife in which she might be corrected, she’ll never have the displeasure of knowing that her life was dedicated to a falsehood.

  6. To be clear, Rota goes on to offer arguments that the epistemic probability of Christianity is, at least, 0.5, i.e., 50–50.

  7. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {1,000,000}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${1,000,000}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${999,999}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{999,999} {1,000,000}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${1,000,000}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}25} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}25.99 \).

  8. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {1,000,000}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${1,000,000}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${999,999}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{999,999} {1,000,000}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${1,000,000}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}99.99 \).

  9. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$3$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {3 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}25} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}250,018.75 \).

  10. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$3$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {3 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}75 \).

  11. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${99}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{99} {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}25} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}10,024.75 \).

  12. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${99}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{99} {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}99 \).

  13. For an example of a model of salvation and atonement that doesn’t require God to become incarnate, see Lebens and Goldschmidt (2017).

  14. The book of Matthew (chapter 28) goes to great lengths to address the seemingly wide-spread belief that it was a hoax.

  15. See Bahrdt (1784–92).

  16. See Dein (2001).

  17. This objection was first raised by Diderot (2018) in section LIX of ‘Addition to the Philosophical Thoughts’. It was later developed by Cargile (1966), Dalton (1975), Martin (1975), Flew (1976), Oppy (1900), Carter (2000), Saka (2001) and Mackie (1982, pp. 200–203).

  18. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue.

  19. Rota (2016, p. 53) raises the concern that there may be something avaricious about taking the wager, using God for personal gain rather than searching for a sincere relationship. Others have worried that a religion lived on the basis of a wager would be inauthentic (Gale 1991, p. 352). Mackie (1982, p. 202) worries that it does violence to our epistemic faculties to try to convince ourselves that something is true only because of what the belief might do for us.

  20. See Svenson and Benthorn (1992).

  21. See Brown (1986) and Murray and Holmes (1993, 1997).

  22. See Keller (2004) and Stroud (2006).

  23. See Fantl and McGrath (2002) for an account of epistemic justification that factors in pragmatic considerations. See Stanley and Hawthorne (2008) for a similar account about what counts as knowledge.

  24. There may be some propositions that you’re willing to consider, in your practical reasoning, but not particularly seriously. We could therefore talk about degrees of unthinkability.

  25. For important discussions about unthinkability and moral incapacity, see: Frankfurt (1988, 1998) and Williams (1973, pp. 92–93, 1995).

  26. For similar considerations, see Hazlett’s (2016) discussion of intellectual loyalty. One might resist describing our phenomenon as a species of loyalty. As Frankfurt (1998, p. 80) points out, when Martin Luther said, “I can do no other”, he was explaining what was unthinkable for him, but it had more to do with his will than with loyalty.

  27. Perhaps they belong to a community of so-called ‘Messianic Jews’, but already, to belong to such a community is to be significantly alienated from the mainstream Jewish world. Many Jews wouldn’t recognise them, and certainly their religion, as Jewish at all.

  28. In correspondence Michael Rota rightly notes an irony. According to Judaism, Christianity is closer to the truth than atheism, and so to it’s odd to stigmatise Christianity more than atheism. On the other hand, perhaps there’s a practical wisdom here: a Jew who becomes an atheist may be easier to bring back to Judaism than a Jew who has become rooted in a Christian community and life-style.

  29. A similar point is raised by Helen de Cruz (forthcoming). Philosophy should be looking to broaden its intellectual horizons, rather than narrowing them down to the confines of our own particular culture.

  30. My talk of the philosophy seminar room is supposed to resemble John Rawls and his talk of an “original position.” We’re supposed to reason, in the original position, without knowing basic facts about our own gender, religion, race, sexuality, etc. Michael Sandel responds: we cannot reason behind a veil of ignorance because, in such conditions, we wouldn’t be ourselves. We don’t exist in abstraction from the things that we care most about (Sandel 1982, pp. 150–165). This is the communitarian critique of liberalism.

    When I say that non-Jewish religions are unthinkable to the Jew, I’m not embracing the communitarian critique of liberalism.

    Rawls (1993, p. 222) was well aware that cultural ties tend to provide us with the “the language we use in speech and thought to express and understand our aims, goals, and values; the society and culture whose history, customs, and conventions we depend on to find our place in the social world.” Consequently, he recognised that these ties were “normally too strong to be given up” and that “this fact is not to be deplored” (ibid., p. 277). Rawls recognises that we have a lot to lose upon being dislocated from our epistemic roots, and that—other things being equal—we shouldn’t criticise a person for the mere fact of their rootedness.

    The original position is just like the philosophy seminar room. It’s a place that we can go to, intellectually speaking, to investigate all possibilities. Whatever the state of our rootedness, we can all go there. Doing so can have many benefits. But it’s not generally a space in which we can live out our life goals. And that fact isn’t to be deplored.

    The view I'm embracing is close (though not identical) to Will Kymlicka’s view. He believes that a certain sort of epistemic rootedness provides a very important backdrop for the possibility of individual freedom. It plays an indispensable role in making sense of a person’s options—providing her with a language and a conception of the good. Epistemic rootedness, we might say (though he would talk of a national, rather than a sub-national, cultural identity), “provides a meaningful context of choice for people, without limiting their ability to question and revise particular values and beliefs” (Kymlicka 1995, p. 93).

  31. See for example Fackenheim (1994). Ariel Meirav raises an interesting response to this line of thought (in correspondence): “Arguably, what [Jewish forbears] sacrificed for was the truth regarding God and his will, and if one comes to a different view as to what is true about God and his will, one’s deeper obligation to one’s ancestors is to leave the community, and one who does not do so under such conditions will be justly criticised.” I think that, in a sense, Meirav is right. But given that the sacrifices in question were made on the assumption that the Jewish identity was important in the eyes of God, one would need an unusually large amount of evidence before abandoning that identity. With overwhelming evidence for the truth of another religion, a person may well be honouring their Jewish ancestors by converting to it. But short of overwhelming evidence, we might have a duty to regard the truth of other religions as unthinkable.

  32. See, Tractate Sanhedrin 105a.

  33. There will be atheist or agnostic Jews with a strong Jewish identity, for whom religious Jewish observance would be as unthinkable as conversion to a non-Jewish religion. For example, some Jews are as rooted in their Jewish identity as they are in their secular Israeli identity, say. Such Jews are not part of Pascalberg’s potential audience; an audience that I call the Jewish undecided. Staunchly secular Jews have, perhaps, already decided. They would need overwhelming evidence for the truth of religious Jewish claims before they would feel compelled to embrace religious Jewish observance. Pascalberg recognises this fact. He wouldn’t address those Jews with this argument. He would be addressing Jewish atheists and agnostics who feel less rooted to their denial of theism. Thanks to Iddo Landau for raising this point.

  34. See Dunkel et al. (2010).

  35. See Mirvis (2018) from the Office of the Chief Rabbi, in the UK.

  36. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times - {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}499,950 \).

  37. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 2}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$2$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}200} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}100 \).

  38. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$3$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {3 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times - {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}249,925 \).

  39. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$3$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {3 4}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}200} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}150 \).

  40. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}1,000,000} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${99}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{99} {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times - {\mathrm{\pounds}}100} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}9,901 \).

  41. \( \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}0} \right) + \left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${99}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{99} {100}}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${100}$}} \times {\mathrm{\pounds}}200} \right) = {\mathrm{\pounds}}198 \).

  42. Thanks to Iddo Landau, for introducing me to the notion of such a deity (in correspondence).

  43. Indeed, the Mishna (Tractate Sanhedrin 10:9), only says you lose your share in the world to come for saying that the Torah isn’t Divine. The Mishna doesn’t address what you believe.

  44. This paragraph owes its existence to an anonymous reviewer.

  45. For the sort of account of faith I have in mind, see—for example—Howard-Snyder (2013).

  46. This is likely to be only a sub-section of the community’s secular fringe; some secular members will not be rooted in such a way as to make other religions unthinkable, and some will not be rooted in such a way as to make any religion thinkable. Thanks to Michael Antony and Iddo Landau for helping me to clarify this point (in conversation).

  47. As Saul Smilansky pointed out to me (in correspondence), perhaps Judaism is a particularly good context for arguments like this. Judaism tends to think that the Jewish people, or nation, exists prior to the religion. And, because of that, the Jewish identity—and the religion—is particularly hospitable to people who have no theological commitments. Accordingly, Judaism is an R that doesn’t tie salvation to belief, and it has a particularly substantial and well-integrated SF. Nevertheless, the argument does generalise.

  48. As a Jewish philosopher, I was amused by the thought of a ‘Baruch Pascalberg’, I hope that Sikh and Muslim readers will be equally amused by my extrapolation of the joke. I certainly meant no offense.

  49. Section LIX of ‘Addition to the Philosophical Thoughts’ (Diderot 2018).

  50. Thanks to Michael Antony, Scott Davidson, Helen De Cruz, Allan Hazlett, Iddo Landau, Ariel Meirav, Michael Rota, Saul Smilansky, Danny Statman, and Eleonore Stump for comments and conversations that contributed to the development of this paper. Thanks also to an anonymous reviewer.

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    Samuel Lebens

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Lebens, S. Pascal, Pascalberg, and friends. Int J Philos Relig 87, 109–130 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09734-x

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