HoP 485 Liz Jackson on Pascal's Wager

Summary

History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps – Episode 485: Liz Jackson on Pascal’s Wager

Main Theme

This episode features Peter Adamson interviewing Liz Jackson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University, on the topic of Pascal’s Wager. The discussion provides a rich, contemporary philosophical exploration of Pascal's Wager, its foundational logic, objections (like the “many gods” objection), formal challenges about decision theory and infinity, the psychological and ethical dimensions of faith versus belief, and how Pascal’s pragmatic argument complements or differs from traditional evidential arguments for God's existence.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Introduction and Overview of Pascal’s Wager

• Difference from Traditional Proofs: Unlike the ontological, cosmological, or design arguments, Pascal’s Wager is not about proving God exists but about the prudence of believing in God based on decision theory or "cost-benefit analysis."
  • Liz Jackson: “Pascal's Wager is not an argument that concludes just that God exists. ... Instead of giving evidence that God exists, it concludes that you ought to wager on God or you ought to believe in God.” [01:05]
• The Payoff Structure:
  • Four logical possibilities are summarized in a 2x2 matrix: (Believe & God exists), (Believe & God doesn't exist), (Don't believe & God exists), (Don't believe & God doesn't exist).
  • The key claim: If you believe in God and God exists, the payoff is infinitely good (heaven/etc.). For all other outcomes, the payoff is less than positive infinity.
  • Jackson: “You don't have to believe in hell for Pascal's Wager to work.” [04:49]

Why Philosophers Are Drawn to the Wager

• Interdisciplinary Implications: The wager intersects with philosophy of religion (nature of God and afterlife), epistemology (ethics and voluntariness of belief), philosophy of mind, decision theory, and even mathematics (infinity).
• Adamson: “The wager ... interacts with so many different fields in philosophy.” [05:38]
• Pascal’s Wager is historically significant in decision theory, introducing the controversial use of infinite payoffs.

The “Many Gods” Objection

• Core Worry: The wager supposedly only supports belief in the Christian God, but a similar wager could be constructed for any religion or gerrymandered god.

• Formal Problem of Infinity in Decision Theory:

  • When the payoffs are infinite, multiplying probabilities by infinity ("the absorption property") washes out differences in probability—every choice with some non-zero probability of infinite reward is equivalently rational.
  • Adamson: “Twice infinity is the same as infinity.” [13:04]
  • Jackson: “So ... Maybe we can't use decision theory to decide after all, maybe these probabilities don't matter in the way we thought they did.” [13:12]

• Jackson's Solution:

  • Argues probabilities should matter in rational decision-making, even with infinite payoffs. Proposes modeling payoffs with very large finite numbers or advanced mathematics (hyperreal numbers, limits).
  • Jackson: “Probabilities matter even when we're dealing with infinite values. ... Go for the higher chance at getting the infinite good rather than the lower chance.” [14:29]

• Gerrymandered Gods & Mixed Strategies: Bizarre conceptions of gods (e.g., rewarding only wine lovers) show the need for a model where probability influences rational choice to avoid recommending all possible “wagers.”

  • Jackson: “Metaphysically possible... but this is why we have to get a system where the probabilities matter.” [17:44]

Control and Rationality of Belief vs. Faith

• Is Belief a Voluntary Act?:
  • Central objection: Can one simply choose to believe for pragmatic reasons? Jackson distinguishes between belief and faith to address this.
• Belief vs. Faith:
  • Belief = cognitive judgment about truth; can be neutral or even negative in attitude.
  • Faith = pro-attitude, commitment, or action in the face of doubt or with positive engagement toward the proposition.
  • Jackson: “Faith involves seeing the object of faith as positive... Belief just represents that it's true, but it's kind of neutral on its value.” [21:34]
  • Faith may not require belief: Faith can persist amid strong doubt or even lack of belief but involves commitment or action.
  • Wagering may more appropriately be about faith (a commitment), not belief (a cognitive state).
• Addresses Two Objections:
  1. “Wagering is impossible”—We can't directly control belief, but perhaps we can choose faith (commitment).
  2. “Wagering is irrational”—Choosing beliefs for self-interest is suspect, but acting on commitment (faith) is consistent with practical reason.
  • Jackson: “If we can control whether we have faith, ... then if we make wagering about having faith, then ... we can control whether we have faith.” [23:53]

The Self-Interest Worry: Is Pascal’s Wager Morally Suspect?

• Concerns: Relying on self-interest is considered out of place in religious faith, which should arise from awe, piety, etc.
  • Adamson: “Religious belief is a really good example of a kind of belief or even kind of faith where you shouldn't think like that. So you shouldn't believe in God or have faith in God out of self interest.” [25:04]
• Jackson’s Response:
  • Entry through self-interested motives can lead to genuine relationship/commitment, akin to movie plots where people’s motives evolve positively.
  • Distinguishes “self-interested” (prudence) from “selfish” (neglecting others), defending that self-interested reasoning isn't inherently disreputable.
  • Wagering could also have altruistic or moral motivations.
    • “I think one those [bad reasons] could lead to good ways. And two, I think there are ways of taking the wager that do represent good motives.” [30:44]

Pragmatic and Epistemic Arguments: The Wager’s Relation to Traditional Proofs

• Complementarity: The wager and traditional evidential arguments (e.g., cosmological, ontological) play complementary roles.
  • The wager can operate given even a modest probability that God exists; doesn’t require high confidence from traditional arguments.
  • Jackson: “You don't have to convince someone that God exists. You just have to say it's at least as likely as it is not.” [33:20]
• Hybrid Arguments: Combining pragmatic and evidential strategies yields a powerful case; e.g., "If the probability is at least 50%, then the wager advises belief."
  • Jackson: “You can combine the pragmatic considerations with the epistemic considerations to still get something like Pascal's Wager.” [33:58]
• Local Pragmatic Reasons: Other pragmatic reasons for belief—including communal benefits, psychological health, or social cohesion—can supplement the Wager logic.

Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On Infinite Rewards:
  • “As long as it's less than infinite utility, it could even still be positive. So you don't have to believe in hell for Pascal's Wager to work. I think that's maybe one of the common misconceptions about the argument.”
    — Liz Jackson [04:49]
• On the “Absorption” Problem:
  • “Twice infinity is the same as infinity.”
    — Peter Adamson [13:04]
• On Faith and Belief:
  • “Just because you believe something doesn't mean you have faith that it's true.”
    — Liz Jackson [21:21]
• On Motive-Formation:
  • “Maybe it gets you on the boat, but then, you know, the commitment gets better over time.”
    — Liz Jackson, on self-interest evolving to genuine faith [27:09]
• On Decisions and Self-Interest:
  • “It's helpful to note that there's a difference between something being self interested and something's being selfish.”
    — Liz Jackson [28:35]
• Almond Croissant Humor:
  • “If this all comes out with everyone having good reasons to eat almond croissants, that would be a good result from my point of view.”
    — Peter Adamson [16:36]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and presentation of the wager: [00:35]–[04:59]
• Relevance and philosophical richness of the wager: [05:38]–[08:48]
• Decision theory, infinite values, and faith as pragmatic attitude: [08:48]–[17:19]; [21:14]–[24:50]
• The “many gods” and “gerrymandered gods” objections: [09:01]–[19:56]
• Self-interest, faith, and moral objections: [24:50]–[31:54]
• Pascal’s wager vs. traditional proofs; hybrid arguments: [31:54]–[36:30]
• Pragmatic reasons for religious belief beyond the wager: [36:30]–[37:29]

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Conclusion

The episode unpacks the enduring philosophical fascination with Pascal’s Wager, addressing objections with technical rigor and accessible examples. Liz Jackson’s contemporary take reframes the wager in light of advances in formal decision theory, the philosophy of action, and religious epistemology. The conversation highlights that while Pascal’s Wager, considered alone, faces significant challenges, there may be a promising future for hybrid arguments and nuanced forms of religious commitment that distinguish faith from mere belief. The dialogue’s tone is inviting, witty, and always intellectually serious.

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Guest: Liz Jackson
Host: Peter Adamson
Date: January 25, 2026

Listen at: www.historyofphilosophy.net

Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of the Philosophy department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich. [e-mail] Today's episode will be an interview about Pascal's Wager with Liz Jackson, who is Associate professor of philosophy at St. Louis University. Hello, Liz.

[B]

Hi, Peter. Thanks so much for having me on.

[A]

Yeah, thanks for coming on. It's exciting to have an expert on this topic. You've published a lot about it, and we're going to look at some of the things you have to say about this, but not all of them by any means. I presented the wager in the previous episode, but just to make sure we're all on the same page, can you give us a quick overview of how it's usually taken to work?

[B]

Absolutely. The way I often like to present it is in contrast to maybe the more familiar arguments for God's existence. So people might have heard of the ontological argument, or the cosmological argument, or the fine tuning argument, design argument. These arguments really mean to provide evidence for the existence of God. They raise the probability that God exists. Their conclusion is often just, you know, God exists or there is a God or something like that. Right. And so these arguments are instructive, I think, for understanding Pascal's Wager, because Pascal's Wager is not an argument that concludes just that God exists. And it actually isn't meant to give evidence that God exists either. But you could still classify it as broadly a theistic argument. But instead of giving evidence that God exists, it concludes that you ought to wager on God or you ought to believe in God. We'll get more into what exactly wagering might look like, but it basically says, look, given a certain kind of cost benefit analysis that I'll explain in a second, it's your best bet to wager on God. So this isn't trying to convince the hearer, you're the listener or the person you're talking to that God exists. It's just saying this is your best bet, given the setup. So maybe I'll say quickly what that setup is. And I think this is similar to the way you had explained it earlier in your other episode, which is basically, there's kind of four possibilities. So you can even think about it like a two by two table or a two by two matrix. And the first and arguably maybe most most important combination is if you believe in God and God exists. And so the thought is if that combination of things happens, it's infinitely good. Maybe you could see that as you go to heaven, heaven lasts forever, and it's good, so that's an infinite good. Or you think in some way, you know, having union with God in heaven would be like maybe the Christian version of it, that would be infinitely good. So there's different ways you could spell out why it's infinitely good. But the idea is that if you believe in God and God exists, it's infinitely good. So there's three other relevant possibilities. God exists, and you don't believe in God, and then God does not exist. You believe in God, God does not exist, and you don't believe in God. And actually, it doesn't really matter what we say about any of those three outcomes as long as it's less than positive infinity. So some people would say, if God exists and you don't believe in God, you go to hell. There's negative infinity. You could say that you actually don't even need that for the wager to work, as long as it's less than positive infinity. And then if God doesn't exist, the thought is it's pretty unlikely there's something like heaven or hell, and so those are also gonna be at less than positive infinity, believing in God if God does not exist, and then not believing in God if God does not exist. But as long as it's less than positive infinity, the wager goes through because you have this really good, infinitely positive outcome if God exists and you believe in God, and then that's gonna wash out all the other considerations. So that's the simplest version, and I'll say, too, that that positive goodness, that positive infinity, that when I say infinite utility, that's what I mean. That's what I'm talking about. It's just infinite, something that's infinitely valuable or infinitely good. The last thing I do want to say, too, is that's the simplest version, but arguably, even Pascal himself, I think it had a more nuanced framing of this. And many contemporary versions acknowledge a successful version of the wager is going to be in some ways more complicated. So it's good to start with the simple version. Get that on the table. But I do want to say successful versions of the wager, or even more plausible versions of the wager are probably going to be more complicated than that.

[A]

Yeah, okay. That's really interesting and I think very insightful the way you set that up, because people often assume that the wager only works if you would go to hell if you don't believe in God and he doesn't exist. But actually, as you're pointing out, it might be that the afterlife for people who didn't believe in God and got it wrong might be kind of, you know, pleasant, sort of like staying at a nice hotel forever, and it's sort of okay, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

But if you're comparing that to an infinite utility, then of course you should bet on believing in God, because then you get the biggest payoff, or you get an infinite payoff, even.

[B]

Exactly. So as long as it's less than infinite utility, it could even still be positive. So you don't have to believe in hell for Pascal's wager to work. I think that's maybe one of the common misconceptions about the argument.

[A]

Right, okay. So we're obviously going to dig into the details of objections and defenses and so on of the wager. But first I thought maybe to pull the camera back. The wager has really attracted a lot of attention in contemporary philosophy, maybe even more than the traditional proofs of God's existence. I mean, I don't know how to measure that, but let's just. There's a kind of whole kind of library of literature in which contemporary philosophers are responding to this argument, and maybe you could say a little bit about why. So what is it that's so philosophically fruitful about it?

[B]

I think that's a really interesting and insightful question, and I do agree it has attracted a lot of attention, both positive and negative. And I think that's really kind of as your question suggests. I think the answer is because it just interacts with so many different fields in philosophy. So the first and most obvious is there's this big philosophy of religion component to it. So the rationality of theistic belief or religious practice, you know, comparing different religions. We'll get into more that more in a second, which is philosophy and also some religious studies stuff. The afterlife, the nature of the afterlife, heaven and hell. That's obviously a big component of the wager. Nature of God, you know, what does God want? Is God going to reward people for believing? Some of that we'll get into as well. So there's this big faux religion component. There's also these kind of interesting questions about the nature of belief that come up. So there's the ethics of belief, and then there's questions about, like, voluntariness of belief. So could we just believe on the basis of something like this? This brings in both epistemology, but also philosophy of mind, even Maybe some cognitive science stuff. So again, that's like a whole field you can look at the wager in light of. And then I think a third bucket is formal philosophy. So there's the nature of infinity. Questions about what is infinity? Like, is it possible for us to even get infinite utility as humans? I mean, there's a bunch of stuff that comes in there and then also, like mathematics of infinity. So for trying to figure out what to do when there's this infinite utility at stake, how does that play in to the map? And then, of course, decision theory. So decision theory is basically a formal way you can do a cost benefit analysis to figure out how you should act. I often like the term cost benefit analysis because it makes it seem less scary. It's just a formal way to represent rational decision making. And that's also another kind of element of the formal philosophy bucket. Some people credit Pascal actually with inventing decision theory. So that's kind of interesting. It's funny because when decision theory was arguably first introduced by Pascal, it was one of its most controversial uses, which is using infinities in decision theory. That's like a very difficult use of decision theory. A lot of decision theory, I think you had an example of going to walk to a bakery and get a pastry. Like, there's no infinite involved in that at all. So it is interesting to me how Pascal brought it in. One of its most controversial uses. But infinite decision theory is another bucket that Pascal's wager brings up. So I just think there's so many interesting topics in all these different fields, some philosophical and some even pushing the boundaries of philosophy. That's part of why I think so many people are interested in it.

[A]

Yeah. Actually, there's even two ways in which the beginning of decision theory is kind of surprising. So one is this thing about infinities. Right. Because when you're making decisions that will hopefully lead to you getting an almond croissant, you're not going to get an infinite reward. I mean, I love almond croissants, but even I can see that they're not infinitely valuable. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that what you're deciding about is a belief, right? So it's not, should I cross the street? It's should I believe this? And as you just said, whether it's a good idea, like whether it's morally acceptable to just decide to believe something, that's one question. Whether it's even possible, that's another question. So decision theory turns out to have a very kind of Complicated birth.

[B]

Yes, that's a really good point. Yeah. Because there's really straightforward cases of it where you're just using finite numbers to decide how to act. And. And Pascal's like, let's use infinite numbers and decide on to believe. And. Yeah, it's very controversial. Totally agree. Very interesting point.

[A]

Right. So having given this general picture, let's focus in on a few things about the wager itself. And let's start with what I think is probably the most commonly given objection, which is the many gods objection. And it's pretty straightforward. So Pascal seems to think that the live question that we're focusing on here is whether to believe in the God worshipped by Christians. Right. Maybe even something more specific than that, like the God worshiped by Catholics or Jansenists or. But anyway, Christians for sure. And then the objection would be, well, surely a Muslim could use the same argument to motivate belief in the God of Islam. Same for Judaism, really. Same for any theistic belief system. Right. So what do you think is the best way to respond to that?

[B]

Yeah, good. I think it's a. It's an important objection. It is one people bring up a lot. And I think maybe I'll give an initial response and then say why things get a little formally complicated, but why. I think ultimately that's not a problem. So I think my initial response is, look, the pragmatic considerations are going to get you to the point where you're like, I need to pick a religion. That's what the pragmatic stuff's going to get you. And then when it comes to choosing between religions, you're right. It's often the pragmatic stuff isn't gonna tell you to pick one religion over the other, depending on, of course, which version of the religions you're looking at. And some theological stuff. Just picking Islam if Christianity turns out to be true may not get you that infinite reward. And picking Christianity if Islam turns out to be true may not get you that infinite reward. And so it looks like we do have to make a decision there. And that's where I say, well, maybe we. That's the extent that the pragmatic stuff can take us. It can really take us just to the choice point of looking at different religions. And then at that point we actually gotta look at the evidence. And so what you gotta do is, you know, assuming the various religions offer similar gains and losses, go for the one you take to be most probable. And if you, like, don't know anything about them, maybe you need to do a little Research. But I'm not here as someone maybe trying to give a contemporary version of Pascal's Wager to tell you which religion to practice, because I don't really think that's settled by the pragmatic stuff. I think you gotta go in and look at the evidence there. I think there's something to be said for that response. But I will say there is still a formal problem that comes up here, and that's because of the way that infinities work in Pascal's Wager. So when you're doing decision theory, part of what you have to do. I'm not going to go into all the complicated math here, but you have to multiply the probability of these various religions times infinity. And so part of what happens is, because there's infinite goods at stake in Pascal's Wager, one way you can think about it is the infinities absorb the probabilities. So the infinite good in Christianity, the infinite good in Islam, those. Okay, what's the final. They call it expected value, which is like you should pick the one that has the highest expected value. It looks like they're both just infinite, regardless of what the probabilities are. Because Christianity, let's say For Pascal, it's 0.9 and Islam is 0.0 something it does. Those probabilities are washed out because all you have at the end of the decision matrix is these infinities. I know this sounds slightly formal. Hopefully it's intuitive enough that the listeners can get a grasp on what I'm talking about. So this is part of why I think the mini gods objection is tricky, because it's not just a question of pragmatic versus epistemic considerations. There's this formal element to it as well. And so what we have to do.

[A]

Then, actually, can I just break in there to just double check that I understand, and then if I understand. So the thought would be, we're choosing between religion A and religion B. Yeah, let's call them Christianity and Islam.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And let's say that Christianity is, after we look at the Evans, deemed to be twice as likely to be true as Islam. So you would think, oh, obviously I should be a Christian then, because that's my best bet at getting the infinite reward. Right. But then it turns out that twice infinity is the same as infinity.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

So the fact that it's twice as likely doesn't matter anymore, which is counterintuitive, but seems to follow from the math. Is that right?

[B]

Thank you. I should have given a concrete example so you could say 0.5 is the probability of Christianity, 0.25 is the probability of Islam. But 0.5 infinity intuitively seems like it's infinity. And 0.25 times infinitively intuitively seems like it's infinity. And so then it looks like, well, maybe we can't use decision theory to decide after all, maybe these probabilities don't matter in the way we thought they did. And that's where I want to say, well, look, you got it. We just think about this intuitively for a second. If I told you, hey, you have some chance at getting infinite utility, and if you pick door one, you have a 0.999 chance, and if you pick door two, you have a 0.0001 chance, you're not just going to say, well, it's infinite utility. So I guess I should flip a couple brain, you know, I mean, of course you're going to go for the higher chance rather than the lower chance, you know. And so I think we can apply a similar principle here and say, look, this is a case where maybe there is something intuitive like that infinity has this absorption property. But when we step back and really think about it, it really shouldn't. We really should go for the higher chance rather than lower chance of getting the infinite good. And so I think what we need to do is sort of alter the math. So it does get more complicated. But so infinity isn't absorbing the probabilities in this way. Some people have done this using what's called hyperreal and surreal numbers. They're basically ways of modeling infinite utilities or infinite numbers that don't absorb probabilities. But maybe a simpler way you could also do it is just use finite numbers and represent the religions with finite numbers. And then you can also, you know, get a similar result. So there's different ways of going. And then, you know, I have a paper where we suggest using ratios and limits. So formalism here though is maybe like the exact formalism is less important. But you just have to realize probabilities matter. Probabilities matter even when we're dealing with infinite values. And I think that's the key to this formal version of the mini God's objection. And once you get that, then you'll. Then it's intuitive. Okay, yeah, wager on the most likely religion, because that's in line with this idea of going for the higher chance at getting the infinite good rather than the lower chance.

[A]

Right. And if probabilities matter, as you just put it, then it doesn't matter. Whether we say that what you get by going to heaven is an infinite Reward or like 5 billion units of utility. So let's say 1 billion. Sorry, let's say one unit of utility is one. Amen. Croissant. So if I get the equivalent of 5 billion times that much utility, that's so much utility that I should do whatever gives me a chance of getting it. And I don't have to say that it's an infinite utility because I can make the wager go through anyway. And then probabilities matter, because if I have double the chance of getting the 5 billion units, then I should take that rather than half the same chance. Right, Yep.

[B]

I think that's a great way of modeling the math. I will say the only downside is even if you put a really high finite value on it, what you can do is then set the probability low enough that technically you shouldn't wager. So the only benefit of using infinities is that basically, as long as your credence that God exists, your probability for the certain religion isn't zero, you should wager. And if you do the finite way, you just have to make the finite number bigger in response to that. But you could say it's like arbitrarily large and then that would get around that, you know. But I do like that the finite numbers, it just makes it a little bit easier to calculate and get your brain around.

[A]

So the point there would be that if I think Christianity might be true, but the chances of its being true are 1 in 5 billion.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Then I have no more reason to believe in it than I do to eat an almond croissant, in fact.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah. I think if this all comes out with everyone having good reasons to eat almond croissants, that would be a good result from my point of view.

[B]

I'm good. I'm good with that too. I love the almond croissants.

[A]

Okay, so I guess this is relevant to something that one sees a lot in the literature, which is fun, but seems a little bit trivial at first glance, which is these so called gerrymandered gods. So I mentioned this in the previous episode. So, like the God who will send people to heaven only if they prefer Chardonnay to other kinds of wine. Or there's this very clever sort of reverse wager that I mentioned where God will send anyone who believes in him to hell.

[B]

Yeah, and atheists go to heaven.

[A]

Send the atheists to heaven. I like this idea. Like, well, what is wrong with you people believing in me without Good evidence. So I'm going to send you all to hell.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

Especially the ones who believed in me. Because of Pascal's Wager, you're really going to hell.

[B]

Deepest level of hell.

[A]

Deepest level of hell. Like the ninth circle in Dante. So does that really add anything to the discussion though? Because presumably these are just kind of far out scenarios that have a very, very low probability. Covered that, right?

[B]

Yeah, no, exactly. That's partially why. And maybe I should have waited, but I was trying to explain why infinities do weird things, because I think that also helps explain what's going on with these cases. Right. So we talked about this absorption property. Infinities absorb probabilities. If it has that absorption property, then the probabilities don't matter. So there's no reason to be a theist rather than be an atheist, as long as there's some chance God sends theist to hell and atheists to heaven. Right. There's also no reason to be a theist rather than drink your favorite wine because that is technically consistent with you coming to believe in God and eventually going to heaven. Right. This is what Al Hayek calls the mixed strategies objection. But basically Pascal's Wager. So like, I think the mini gods objection shows like, if it's correct, Pascal's Wager can't help us decide between religions. This objection takes it one step further. It almost says Pascal's Wager gives all actions the same infinite expected value. And we can't. Like there's no action is recommended over any other action. One response that I thought was funny is like, oh, well, that in itself proves there's a God, because every action has an infinite expected value. Only God would make the world that good. Something like that. But I thought that was. That's a joke. Of course it is true. But I think you're right that this kind of problem does come back to this absorption property thing. Metaphysically possible or epistemically possible, that atheists go to heaven and theists go to hell, or that drinking wine will eventually lead you to go to heaven, you know, I mean, all that is possible. But this is why we have to get a system where the probabilities matter. So the probability that atheists go to heaven and theists go to hell, I think a lot of people are going to think is lower than the reverse kind of more traditional picture. And, you know, the probability that drinking wine eventually leads you to heaven, it's possible, but it's probably a pretty low probability. And so whether we use finite values or one of the other, like formal ways of representing infinities where they don't absorb probabilities. That is going to recommend taking kind of a more traditional route, believing in a more traditional religion or the religion you think is most likely to be true, rather than, you know, continuing to be an atheist or doing some random action that is theoretically consistent with belief.

[A]

Okay, so let's say for the sake of argument, then, that we've either adjusted the mathematics of infinity such that it doesn't matter how likely something is to get me the relevant reward, or instead we take a very, very high finite number to represent the reward. So let's say we've done that, and let's say we've also done your kind of empirical inquiry, looking for evidence, and we've considered all the religions that seem like live options to us. And it turns out Pascal is right. Christianity is the best bet. Right. It's the most likely to be right. It promises an indefinite reward or an arbitrarily high finite reward. So here we go. Now, I should be a Christian according to the wager, but here we run into this problem about merely deciding to believe in something because it would be in my interest. Right? And something that you've mentioned in some of your work on this, which I thought was really interesting, is that perhaps belief wouldn't be the right attitude, as philosophers would say. So it wouldn't be the right kind of response to the wager. Rather, the right response would be faith. So could you explain what the difference there would be?

[B]

I'll just talk about belief and faith a little bit first and then bring it back to the wager. So there's a question. How does belief relate to faith? Are they different? Are they similar? I think some people think they're almost the same thing. I actually think they're not the same thing. So one important thing is that just because you believe something doesn't mean you have faith that it's true. Right? You believe like there was a global pandemic. You believe like there's wars going around in various parts of the world. You believe terrible things happen. You don't have faith. And I think what that's supposed to illustrate is that faith involves seeing the object of faith as positive or having people say, like, a pro attitude towards it. You want it to be true. You see it as a good thing. Belief doesn't. Belief just represents that it's true, but it's kind of neutral on its value, you know? And so you could believe things that you want to be true. You can also Believe things you don't want to be true. But faith inherently involves this positive attitude towards opposition. So that's one important difference, I think, between belief and faith. You could definitely believe something but not have faith that it's true. Okay, so then what about the reverse? Could you have faith that something's true but not believe it's true? This is actually more contro. Almost all philosophers agree that belief doesn't entail faith. But the other direction is, I think, more interesting or more disagreed on. Does faith require belief? Does faith entail belief? I think there's some interesting reasons to think maybe not. I think part of the idea behind this is that faith, what it helps us do is it helps us continue in our commitments to ourselves, to other people, to our goals, even in light of serious doubts. And I think faith is consistent with more doubt or more counteract evidence than belief is. And so one thought is that faith, you could have a commitment where you believe something and then you get a lot of like, counter evidence so that you can't believe it anymore, but you can continue to have faith that it's true. You could think about belief in God like this, or maybe faith and, you know, someone you're committed to in like a marriage or a partnership, even faith in yourself. You could think about like, am I going to finish this degree? Or continue in this new year's resolution I made. And so the idea is that maybe faith could involve attitudes weaker than belief, like thinking something's more likely than not, or thinking something's the most probable of the live options. Maybe that rings what we were just talking about and on some views that are even more extreme, pulling faith and belief apart even more. Faith isn't really an attitude at all. Fundamentally, it's actually more like an action. So faith is a commitment to act in certain ways or commitment to just take certain actions, act as if something's true rather than something that's like belief like. So I think this is a really interesting idea, and I think it actually helps us get around two key objections to the wager, maybe more. But the first is I can't. It's kind of what you were alluding to. I can't wager because I can't control my beliefs. Well, if we can control whether we have faith, especially if faith is more action like than belief, then if we make wagering about having faith, then, you know, we can control whether we have faith. And the second is not that I can't control whether I wager, but just that wagering would be irrational. We Were alluding to this at the beginning. But you shouldn't choose what you believe on the basis of a cost benefit analysis. Just because believing I have a million dollars would make me really happy doesn't mean I should believe I have a million dollars. That should be based on my evidence. But if faith is different, if faith is less belief like and more action like, then I think it is reasonable to think you should. You could have faith on the basis of a cost benefit analysis in the same way you use cost benefit analyses or decision theory, something like them, when you're making decisions about how to act. And so I do think both. Again, wagering is impossible. Wagering is irrational. I think it can help with both of those objections.

[A]

I think thinking about in terms of faith might make a different worry I had in a way even more pressing, though.

[B]

Oh, cool.

[A]

So this worry is that even if it turned out that in some circumstances it would be kind of in my interest if I could get myself to believe something or even to have faith in something, I'm going to have better chance of getting through this battle if I have faith in my comrades, something like that. So I should try really hard to have faith in my comrades. In part out of self interest. I think someone might say, well, but religious belief is a really good example of a kind of belief or even a kind of faith where you shouldn't think like that. So you shouldn't believe in God or have faith in God out of self interest. You should believe or have faith in God because you worship God, because you are struck by the majesty of creation, something like that. So self interest seems to be really out of place. Here would be the thought, and I think sometimes people have this feeling that Pascal's wager is kind of disreputable, or there's something not just logically fishy about it, but especially given that Pascal himself is like this incredibly pious, heartfelt Christian. And oh, by the way, here's where you want to place your bets. It's like, place my bets? I thought we were talking about piety and being awestruck by the majesty of God. Right. So do you think that's a reasonable objection to the wager?

[B]

In some ways? Yeah. I mean, I think it's reasonable, but I think there are responses. I mean, maybe to be concessive a little bit, you can't argue. Everyone who takes the wager always does so with good motives, unless you just have a really narrow understanding of taking the wager that I think is implausible. So I don't think it's going to be like a plausible response to say everyone who takes the wager always has good, always does so for good reasons. And the best route forward, I think is going to be to try to carve out a way that looks like genuinely taking the wager, but also looks like it's done. And maybe say that's not like a super rare occurrence. And I guess maybe one more concessive thing before I talk about that. Sometimes you enter into commitment, relationship, even just the decision to act in certain ways for bad reasons, but then you end up in a good place later and you end up actually in a really genuine relationship or a really genuine commitment. So I was thinking, as I was like reading your questions, I was thinking about like some of those cheesy movies. I couldn't think of like a really good example off the top of my head. But I think you'll know, like the genre I'm talking about where someone is just like using someone for some goal they have or to try to get to someone else or for their money or whatever, and then they go on this adventure together and then they end up like developing a really deep friendship or falling in love or, you know, whatever. And by the end of the movie, they're clearly like not using them anymore, you know, for this other end. They like are valuing the person for who they are themselves and then end up falling in love or end up, you know, whatever. And so I think that's a kind of example of what this could look like. In the case of Pascal's Wager, someone initially kind of hears the wager, finds it convincing, but is really just being really selfish. And it kind of enters into this with bad motives. But as they progress in the religious commitment, maybe see the beauty of the story that whatever religion they pick is telling, maybe their commitment changes and maybe their motives become better and they become a much more genuine follower of the religion. So that is like a possibility worth noting for sure. Maybe like it gets you on the boat, but then, you know, the commitment, you know, gets better over time. So the second response that I think is helpful is to note, I do think some people, especially if I'm talking to like undergrads or something, it's helpful to note that there's a difference between something being self interested and something's being selfish. And so you can do lots of things. In fact, a lot of the actions we take every day are in some sense self interested. Brushing your teeth, sitting down at your desk to try to accomplish your work goals for that day. Eating dinner, you know, I mean, all of these things are in your interest, based on your goals, but, but there's nothing wrong with doing them, you know, and even sometimes actions that seem altruistic seem like you're doing them to help other people are partially self interested as well. You want the people around you to be happy. You give to charity and it makes you happy to have helped someone else. Maybe that shouldn't be the only reason you do those things. But arguably it does sometimes play into seemingly altruistic actions as well. Selfish is different. Selfish is when you're so focused on yourself and your own needs that you ignore the needs of other people. So if we're both really hungry and there's one croissant and we could split if I just eat the whole thing and ignore the fact that you also want some, that would be selfish. It's also self interested, but it, it seems worse. It's like going beyond just what do I want? It's like, what do I want? Ignoring what everyone else wants, you know, and so Pascal's Wager I don't think would normally be selfish. I think it could be self interested. But that's not always a bad thing because it basically just means it's aligned with your goals. Right. And so I want to say we act in self interest all the time. If you're not being selfish and you're just acting in self interest, it's not clear to me that that's terrible motive. The final thing I want to say is that this is like something that Mike Rota points out in his book called Taking Pascal's Wager, but others have mentioned as well, is that you could wager for moral reasons. You know, you could wager maybe because you think it's a likely route to becoming a more virtuous person yourself. You could wager because you think, well, maybe if there was a God who existed, this God would want me to wager. And so I want to wager for the sake of, you know, obeying God. You could even think wagering might promote the wellbeing of people around you. Likely they get infinite utility, or maybe you being a better person would benefit them in various ways. And so I think ultimately maybe you could wager for a mix of moral and pragmatic reasons, or, you know, some moral, some self interested. And that doesn't seem too bad to me at all. So yeah, I do think, yes, there are bad ways of taking the wager, but I think one, those could lead to good ways. And two, I think there are ways of taking the wager that do represent good motives.

[A]

And Pascal himself certainly never says, by the way, this is the only reason anyone should ever believe in God. Right? Far from it.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

So it's part of a package. And speaking of that, just as the sort of self interested part of why you should take the wager might go along with some other reasons you have anyway for believing in God, or in this case, believing in the Christian God. So this whole way of arguing doesn't exclude the use of traditional proofs for the existence of God. So at the beginning you drew this nice distinction where you said, well, the difference between the wager and things like the cosmological proof of God or the ontological argument or whatever. So I've covered all of these in various episodes over the years. Right. And everyone's familiar with these various kinds of proof for the existence of God. But the wager is really different because it doesn't try to show you that God exists. It tries to convince you that you ought to believe in God because it would be in your self interest. Right. So I'm wondering whether it works best in combination with these other proofs or does it make the other proofs superfluous? And how does it relate to the use of the more traditional proofs?

[B]

That's a good question. I think there's definitely a complementary role. So one way you could put it is there's these pragmatic strategies or these pragmatic arguments for theism, and then there's these epistemic or evidential strategies. So pragmatic is cost benefit analysis based. Epistemic is like you were saying, these ones that give you evidence. And then the way I said it before is like sometimes you could put them together and have like a hybrid strategy. And so that's the sense in which I think they could be complementary. So here's an example, just an argument you might consider. Premise 1, Wager on God if the probability that God exists is at least 50%. Premise two, the probability that God exists is at least 50%. Therefore you should wager on God. And so what's interesting, Mike Roda has a version, a Christianity focused version of this argument in his book, but I'm just doing the generic theism one so that first premise wager on God, if the probability of theism is at least 0.5, that's going to be the pragmatic premise. So it's going to say if you think there's at least a 50, 50 chance God exists, then this cost benefit analysis shows it's in your best interest to wager on God. And that's actually pretty easy to argue because the probability is already relatively high, is built into it. I actually think you can get something even stronger than that, like the probability being lower. What I mean, but you give something like Pascal's cost benefit analysis to support that. Right. Premise two, the probability of theism is at least 0.5. That's where you would bring in these traditional arguments, cosmological, ontological, fine tuning, whatever ones you find most convincing. What's interesting there is also, then you don't have to argue that it's like 0.9. Like you don't have to convince someone that God exists. You know, you just have to say it's at least as likely as it is not, you know, so it's a little bit of a lower bar that those arguments have to meet. And I think that's a good thing because arguments are pretty controversial. There's lots of iterations of them, but that's because there's lots of objections. And you know, of course there's not anything like a philosophical consensus and the question of whether God exists. And so to try to convince someone the probability of God's existence is super high. It's a tall order. But to say it's 0.5, I think that's a more reasonable goal. And so then from there you get this conclusion, wager on God. And so that's just an example of how you can combine the pragmatic considerations with the epistemic considerations to still get something like Pascal's wager. But I think there's a little bit less of a burden on each sort of step in the argument as you just use one or the other. You can do that too, but it's a little bit harder. You're going to have to have a little more argumentative fuel there. So, and what's interesting, maybe I'll just say this Pascal, you could see doing something like this actually in the Pense, because before Pascal talks about the wager, Pascal actually argued, basically, I think my understanding is based on like fulfilled prophecy as the main consideration that the probability of Christianity is. I mean, I don't know if he says exactly 50%, but he basically sets it up to where, like there's two live options. There's Christianity or there's no God. The problem of Christianity isn't high enough that we're just like ignoring this other option. But it's roughly 50, 50. And that's then the context in which he brings in the Wager. So actually his kind of quote unquote epistemic step comes in the ponce before the wager. A lot of people focus more on the pragmatic stuff, but arguably he's actually doing something like a hybrid argument as well.

[A]

Yeah, and one thing about the way you set that up just now is that there could be other pragmatic reasons for believing in God. Right. For example, maybe I live in a community where everyone else believes in God, and if they found out that I didn't, I'd be ostracized. Or maybe a little bit less kind of self interested or selfish would be perhaps. I think that my society would go really well if everyone was a pious Christian, right? Because everyone would be obeying the golden rule and so on. And so I should do my part. So I should be Christian too, right? So it doesn't have to be the wager. And then I could combine that kind of pragmatic consideration with these traditional proofs. And then it seems to me that the really distinctive thing about the wager is that the traditional proofs don't actually have to be as strong, because especially the way this goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning. So if I've got an infinite reward on the table to go for, then really, if the traditional proofs have any grip on me at all, even if the probability of them working is pretty low, I'll say good enough. Whereas I'm just trying to get along with my neighbors or get the political community to work, then it seems like I want those proofs to do more than just have some chance of working. So that would be the difference.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And just to add to the pragmatic reasons for belief in God, there's some studies and like kind of empirical literature that it's debatable, but it shows there is benefits to being religious. You know, maybe you're happier, healthier, less likely to get divorced, more likely to give to charity. A lot of this is contentious, but if you put enough weight on that kind of stuff, that could be another pragmatic argument that really doesn't talk about the afterlife at all. It's just like it maximizes your chance of getting these good earthly things. And then too, I mean, you could just have a simple one. Like maybe you think believing in God would like, make you happy, happier, give you hope or something, you know? And so, yeah, I do think it's interesting. One thing you could do is expand Pascal's Wager to just include those. Or you could say those are like extra considerations, I guess, like pragmatic considerations for a belief in God. But, yeah, I do think it is important and interesting to, like, think about different types of pragmatic considerations and how they might play into the wager and not just limit it to heaven and hell or the traditional way people have looked at it. But, yeah, absolutely. I also think the possibility of these hybrid arguments is really interesting.

[A]

Yeah, that is interesting. And that was, in general, very interesting. So thanks so much for taking us through all that. Next time, I'm going to be turning to someone who knew Pascal actually, and was part of the Jansenist movement with him, Antoine Arnauld, who's actually maybe not like a household name, but turns out to be pervasively present in 17th century French philosophy, because not only is he part of the Jansenist movement, but he is one of the two authors of this very important logical work called the Port Royal Logic. And he also engaged in debates, especially with Malevanche, but also other philosophers like baal. So he's like everywhere in French philosophy of this period. So he's going to be worth our attention. So that's what we're moving on to next. But for now, I'll thank Liz Jackson very much for coming on the podcast.

[B]

Thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.

[A]

Yeah, I enjoyed it, too. And I hope the listener did also. And I hope the listener will join me again next time when I look at Arnaud and Jansenism here on the History of Philosophy without any gaps.