Spirited Script

Spoken like someone who has never read the Pensées. Because before criticising it is not at all relevant to have actually read it first, right? If you had read the Pensées (which can be grabbed for free here by the way: http://manybooks.net/titles/pascalb1826918269-8.html) you would know Pascal actually addresses this point specifically. He even agrees that belief cannot be chosen.

- “Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?”
True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.–”But this is what I am afraid of.”–And why? What have you to lose? – Pascal

Mind you I’m an atheist, so I don’t agree with Pascal. However, bringing a criticism to bear against the man, which he explicitly foresaw and responded to in his original writing, without at least mentioning Pascal’s response is just plain ignorant and silly. It makes you a bad philosopher and a narrow-minded atheist.

floslib, thank you for the response even though I realise in retrospect I was being unnecessarily blunt. I also apologise for assuming that you are an atheist. That was rather silly of me. I just assumed this because gripes with Pascal’s wager are usually raised by atheists.

I agree with you that the wager seems to have morphed into something far less sophisticated than it originally was. However, this seems to be the case with nearly all such arguments. They all too easily get distilled into some simplistic layman’s version.

In this case what people seldom take note of is that Pascal’s wager was meant as an argument for what one should do (how one should conduct one’s life) and not as an argument for the belief-content itself. “Reason cannot decide (whether God exists or not),” Pascal says, so how should one handle the question? Pascal then thinks that since it is equally likely that God exists and that he does not (he compares it with flipping a coin), the infinite reward justifies conducting one’s life as if he does (note that Pascal does not mention Hell much at all. Lesser people than Pascal seemingly like to focus on punishment rather than reward).

What I think is wrong with the argument is Pascal’s assumptions. He assumes an epistemic parity between the God of Christianity and no God at all without considering the probability of other options. He also assumes that religious piety is somehow morally superior or desirable. Atheism is to him an illness to be cured of. If you are – as I am – disinclined to grant these assumptions, Pascal’s argument just falls flat.