![]() The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing. Pronunciation. See also wage. Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge. Temple. Besides these Plates, the Wagers may be as the Persons please among themselves, but the Horses must be evidenced by good Testimonies to have been bred in Ireland. ![]() Archaic A pledge of personal combat to. The name is somewhat. Synonyms of wager from the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, with definitions, antonyms, and related words. Find a better way to say it. Wager definition, something risked or staked on an uncertain event; bet: to place a wager on a soccer match. Username: Password: Forgot Your Password? Bentley. If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity.(law) A contract by which two parties or more agree that a certain sum of money, or other thing, shall be paid or delivered to one of them, on the happening or not happening of an uncertain event. They were wagers of warfare against the wilderness and the Indians, and founders of families and towns. Elsa Maxwell, How to Do It; Or, The Lively Art of Entertaining, p. Hatshepsut was no wager of wars, no bloodstained conqueror. Wagner College was one of only 50 colleges throughout the country that was included in a highly exclusive new guide to best-value schools published by Princeton. Our members have access to live racing, video feeds and an archive of results and replays. Pascal's Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). It is important to contrast Pascal's argument with various putative.
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Endeavour .. To put it crudely, we. God exists because it is the best bet. Ryan. 1. 99. 4 finds precursors to this line of reasoning in the writings of. Plato, Arnobius, Lactantius, and others; we might add Ghazali to his. Palacios 1. 92. 0. But what is distinctive is Pascal's. In fact. Hacking 1. Wager as “the first well- understood. Thus, we should pause briefly. We may assign. utilities to such outcomes, numbers that represent the degree. It is typical to present these numbers. Still, sometimes rationality. Consider, for example, a case. Suppose that you have two. A1 and A2, and the worst outcome associated with A1. A2; suppose. also that in at least one state of the world, A1's outcome is strictly. A2's. Let us say in that case that A1. A2. Then rationality seems to require you to. A1. Assume that the. A figure of. merit called the expected utility, or the expectation. According to decision. Example. Suppose that the utility of money is. The expectation of the game itself is. On the other hand, if the game gave an equal chance of returning. It should be admitted that there are certain exegetical. Pascal never finished the. Pens. Hacking 1. 97. Infinite—nothing” as consisting of “two pieces of paper covered. Furthermore, our formulation of the. Bayesian decision theory might. To some extent, “Pascal's. Wager” now has a life of its own, and our presentation of it here is. Still, we will closely follow Pascal's text. We will locate three. God, although they interleave in the. We will conclude with a discussion of what Pascal. Reason cannot settle. Here is the first key passage: “God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? There is an infinite chaos which. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite. Which will you choose. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two. Let us weigh. the gain and the loss in wagering that God is.. If you gain, you gain. Wager, then, without hesitation. He is. He speaks of “the true” as. Yet he goes on to claim that if you. God is, then “you lose. Surely in that case you “lose the true”. Pascal believes, of. God is “the true” —. Moreover, it is not because “you must of necessity. Rather, by Pascal's own account, it. Rationality does not. God if you assign probability 0 to God. And Pascal does not explicitly rule this possibility out. God's existence; yet this argument is presented as if it. If that is a further premise, then the argument is apparently. See Mc. Clennen for a reading of this. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps. The thought seems to be that if I wager for God, and God does not. I really do lose something. In fact, Pascal himself speaks. God, which. presumably one loses if God does not exist. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to. But. there is an eternity of life and happiness. It is helpful to bear. Pascal's interest in gambling (which after all provided the. Now, recall our calculation of the expectations. Pascal apparently assumes. God costs “one life”, and then reasons analogously to. This is, as it were, a warm- up. One way to defend it is via the classical. To be sure, unless more is said, the interpretation. Morris imagines, rather, an. God, but. it is equally balanced. In any case, it is clear that there. Pascal's audience who do not assign probability 1/2 to. God's existence. This argument, then, does not speak to them. This brings us to the third. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this. being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life. It is all divided; wherever the infinite. Pascal's talk. of winning two, or three, lives is a little misleading. By his own. decision theoretic lights, you would not act stupidly “by. The point. rather, is that the prospective prize is “an infinity of an infinitely. In short, if God exists, then wagering for God results in. There is. some dispute over the utility of “misery”. Hacking interprets this as. Pascal does later speak of “hell” as the outcome in. Martin 1. 98. 3 among others assigns this a value of. Sobel 1. 99. 6, on the other hand, is one. There is some textual support. The justice of God must be vast like His compassion. As for the utilities of the outcomes associated with God's. Pascal tells us that “what you stake is finite”. This. suggests that whatever these values are, they are finite. We can think of Pascal's Wager as having three premises: the. God's existence, and the third is a. Specifically: Either God exists or God does not exist, and you can either wager. God or wager against God. The utilities of the relevant possible. God exists. God does not exist. Wager for God. Rationality requires you to wager for. God. Conclusion 2. You should wager for God. The first conclusion seems straightforwardly to. God's existence): E(wager for God) = . On the other. hand, your expected utility of wagering against God is E(wager against God) = f. Therefore. rationality requires you to wager for God. Most of them can be stated. Different matrices for different people. The argument. assumes that the same decision matrix applies to everybody. However. perhaps the relevant rewards are different for different people. Or maybe the prospect of salvation appeals more to some. Swinburne 1. 96. 9 has noted. This brings us to the next. The utility of salvation could not be infinite. One might. argue that the very notion of infinite utility is suspect — see. Jeffrey 1. 98. 3 and Mc. Clennen. 1. 99. 4. Strict finitists, who are chary of the notion of. Dummett 1. 97. 8 and Wright. Or perhaps the notion of infinite utility makes sense, but an. There should be more than one infinity in the matrix. For. example, it might be thought that a forgiving God would bestow infinite. Rescher. 1. 98. 5 is one author who entertains this possibility. Or it might be. thought that, on the contrary, wagering against an existent God results. Suppose, for instance, that God does not exist, but that we. The matrix should have more rows. Perhaps there is more. God, and the rewards that God bestows vary. For instance, God might not reward infinitely those who. Him only for the very mercenary reasons that. Pascal gives, as James 1. One could also imagine. The matrix should have more columns: the many Gods. If Pascal is really right that reason can decide nothing. Pascal presumably had in mind the Catholic. God — let us suppose that this is the God who. The objection, then, is that the. The objection could equally run. Pascal's argument . As Diderot (1. 74. An Imam could reason just as well this. Mackie 1. 98. 2 writes, “the church within which alone salvation is. Church of Rome, but perhaps that of. Anabaptists or the Mormons or the Muslim Sunnis or the worshippers. Kali or of Odin” (2. Cargile 1. 96. 6 shows just how easy it is to. God who prefers contemplating x more than any other. It seems, then, that such . Although there may be ties among the expected utilities. Schlesinger (1. 99. In. cases where the mathematical expectations are infinite, the criterion. Jordan (1. 99. 4a, 1. Similarly, Schlesinger maintains that Pascal is. Cargile's. imagined Gods, for example, may be correspondingly assigned lower. Pascal's God. Lycan and Schlesinger (1. Pascal's God over others in one's. They begin by noting the familiar problem in. Faced with a. multiplicity of theories that all fit the observed data equally well. They go on to argue that simplicity. God as. “absolutely perfect”, “which is theologically unique. God” (1. 04), and we may add that this conception is. Pascal's. Conceptions of rival Gods, by contrast, leave open various. Finally, Bartha (2. So understood, Pascal's. Wager is not a single decision, but rather a sequence of decisions in. God appeared to be in the previous round. He shows that certain assignments are. Pascal against the many Gods objection. Premise 2: The Probability Assigned to God's Existence. There are four sorts of problem for this premise. The first two are. Undefined probability for God's existence. Premise 1. presupposes that you should have a probability for God's. However, perhaps you could rationally. God exists could remain undefined. We cannot enter here into. But there is some support for this response even in Pascal's. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being. played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails. The thought could be that any probability assignment. Morris' 1. 98. 6. God's existence is to feign having evidence that one in fact totally. For unlike a coin that we know to be fair, this metaphorical. Perhaps, then, rationality. God's existence (in which case at least the Argument from. Superdominance would apparently be valid). Or perhaps rationality does not require. Either way, the Wager would not. Zero probability for God's existence. Strict atheists may. Oppy. 1. 99. 0 among others points out. For example, they may contend that reason. God does not exist, perhaps by arguing. Or a Bayesian might hold that rationality places no. Then as long as the strict atheist. God's non- existence alongside his or her. God's existence, no norm of rationality has been. For then the expectation calculations become: E(wager for God) = . Now perhaps this is an analytic. Pascal without further. But this premise has met. The Allais 1. 95. Ellsberg 1. 96. 1 paradoxes, for. Petersburg. paradox, in which it is supposedly absurd that one should be prepared. For example, we might consider expected. H. Or we might consider. Bartha 2. 00. 7. If we either admit. Nonetheless, the door is opened to some suitable reformulation. Pascal's purposes. Indeed, Bartha argues that. Wager that turn on its invocation of infinite. One could then. concede that practical rationality requires you to maximize expected. This objection is especially relevant, since. Pascal admits that perhaps you “must renounce reason” in order to.
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