Edit: To clarify, when I say "accept Pascal's Wager" I mean accepting the idea that way to do the most (expected) good is to prevent as many people as possible from going to hell, and cause as many as possible to go to heaven, regardless of how likely it is that heaven/hell exists (as long as it's non-zero).
I am a utilitarian and I struggle to see why I shouldn't accept Pascal's Wager. I'm honestly surprised there isn't much discussion about it in this community considering it theoretically presents the most effective way to be altruistic.
I have heard the argument that there could be a god that reverses the positions of heaven and hell and therefore the probabilities cancel out, but this doesn't convince me. It seems quite clear that the probability of a god that matches the god of existing religions is far more likely than a god that is the opposite, therefore they don't cancel out because the expected utilities aren't equal.
I've also heard the argument that we should reject all infinite utilities – for now it seems to me that Pascal's Wager is the only example where the probabilities don't cancel out, so I don't have any paradoxes or inconsistencies, but this is probably quite a fragile position that could be changed. I also don't know how to go about rejecting infinite utilities if it turns out I have to.
I would obviously love to hear any other arguments.
Thanks!
There isn't one. To reject Pascal's Wager, you just have to conclude that you don't care about infinity. Taking Pascal's Wager is the correct utilitarian response. You probably need to weight religions both by how likely they are to be true and how likely you can "win" conditional upon them being true.
Amanda Askell has a good rundown on why most objections to Pascal's Wager are bad.
Askell's first response is a non sequitur. The person deciding to take Pascal's wager does so under uncertainty about which of the n gods will get them into heaven. The response is assuming you're already in the afterlife and will definitely get into heaven if you choose door A.
However, the n-god Pascal's wager suggests that believing in any one of the possible gods (indeterminate EU) is better than believing in no god (-infinite EU). Believing in all of them is even better (+infinite EU). There's nothing in the problem statement saying that each god will ... (read more)