Pascal’s Wager Revisited

Lycan and Schlesinger (You Bet Your Life: Pascal’s Wager Defended. In J. Feinberg (Ed.), Reason and Responsibility, seventh edition. Encino: Dickenson, 1988) make the following two claims (among others): (1) it is misguided to object to Pascal’s wager (Pascal Pensées (A. Krailsheimer, Trans.). Penguin, 1670/2003) on the ground that belief is not immediately subject to will, and (2) it is misguided to object to Pascal’s wager on the ground that one assigns zero credence to the claim that there are sources of infinite utility. I shall argue that there is more to both of these objections that Lycan and Schlesinger supposed. In particular, I shall argue for the following three claims. First, the distinction between believing in God and wagering for God raises a serious obstacle to Pascal’s argument. Second, Pascalian calculation of ‘expected utility’ does not provide a good reason to reconsider credences and values. Third, if Pascalian calculation of ‘expected utility’ did provide a good reason to reconsider credences and values, it is unclear why that reconsideration should not yield more ‘zeroing out’ of the claim that God exists than might initially have been predicted.