Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God
Perhaps one further characteristic shared by Pascal's wager and James's argument should
be mentioned: these are arguments that many people, such as von Neu
end p.184
mann, actually employ. There are people who are persuaded by them. I doubt that the
same is true of, say, the ontological argument. A close examination of the wager and the
will-to-believe argument is important, then, not only for their inherent philosophical
interest, but also to determine whether these arguments merit the trust that people actually
accord them.
NOTES
1.In the Levi translation the relevant passage is 680; in the Lafuma edition the passage is
- All Pensées citations are to the Levi edition.
2.As described, the first version of the wager is an argument from weak dominance.
3.The matrix employed to represent Pascal's wager consists of three important
components: states of the world (ways the world could be), acts (actions open to
decision), and outcomes (anticipated effects of each act if a particular state occurs):
Depending on the number of Acts and States (2 x 2, or 2 x 3, or 3 x 3) the Outcomes will
be arranged in cells, which are numbered sequentially from the upper left-hand cell
across. For example: