Pascal's wager

[Rhizomorph13]

Yeah, I understand what we are talking about. I don't mean an isolated act of evil. I was thinking about a pedophile that is driven to molest children and is tortured by the drive to act against children but still follows through. Or a serial killer who likes the thrill of the kill and doesn't mind that it is evil because it is enjoyable.

[Epimethean]

I suppose that my question then would be, if the evil that a person does is driven by a brain defect or tumor or some such, is the person committing the acts truly doing them in order to be evil and through an engagement with being evil, or is that person split between doing the acts and regretting them and thereby not truly evil at the core. Serial killers and those who are psychotically predisposed to kill seem to me incapable of accurately assessing reality to the degree necessary for cognizance of evil as a state of being.

[jonb]

I suppose that my question then would be, if the evil that a person does is driven by a brain defect or tumor or some such, is the person committing the acts truly doing them in order to be evil and through an engagement with being evil, or is that person split between doing the acts and regretting them and thereby not truly evil at the core. Serial killers and those who are psychotically predisposed to kill seem to me incapable of accurately assessing reality to the degree necessary for cognizance of evil as a state of being.

I don't believe on the concept of evil, but I have noticed that different people have varying levels of empathy.
Lets imagine you set up a legal system and with an accurate way to determine the individuals ability to assess the consequences of their actions, you would then be able to punish the individual appropriately.

This would be fair for the individual, but a society which punishes the nicer people more than the aggressive, will naturally select in favour of psychopathic tendencies.

Could being fair now, create an awful society, and are we better off with injustice?

[Epimethean]

Are we making a sliding equation of evil to injustice, and must we do so on a societal scale in order to assess it properly?

[jonb]

Are we making a sliding equation of evil to injustice, and must we do so on a societal scale in order to assess it properly?

Seems to be a rough re working of the question.

[Rhizomorph13]

Good question Epi, I suppose it depends on your definition of evil. Are you evil if you don't feel bad about doing evil things? Does evil even exist without an observer to judge the action or person?

I feel that good and evil are relative terms so, within the framework of a society is the only place where "evil" has any meaning; given that, a person can be evil AND feel bad about it in my opinion.

Jonb, intersting points. I would say that, within a society, we would have to make judgements based on effect rather than intent, because intent in nigh impossible to apprehend and feeling bad about killing someone has never made them any less dead.

[The Grand Nudger]

Good question Epi, I suppose it depends on your definition of evil. Are you evil if you don't feel bad about doing evil things? Does evil even exist without an observer to judge the action or person?

I feel that good and evil are relative terms so, within the framework of a society is the only place where "evil" has any meaning; given that, a person can be evil AND feel bad about it in my opinion.

Jonb, intersting points. I would say that, within a society, we would have to make judgements based on effect rather than intent, because intent in nigh impossible to apprehend and feeling bad about killing someone has never made them any less dead.

Yet we do assign different degrees to precisely this crime based upon intent. The difference between murder and manslaughter is not whether or not someone is dead but how and why they ended up that way. Perhaps there is a good reason that we do this, or perhaps it is an expression of that empathy we've just invoked (not that this wouldn't be a good reason in my estimation). Our willingness to extend mercy to those who we feel truly did not intend for or fully comprehend the consequences of their actions. If it were the latter, I would guess that this has something to do with our laws being crafted with that sort of empathy -even if it seems impractical or illogical when phrased another way- in mind to begin with.

The effect is what precedes the trial. The trial itself is often dominated by intent, empathy, emotion, instinct...etc. Effect seems to influence how we apprehend, or who does the apprehending, much more than it does the doling out of rulings.

Run over a kid on a bicycle and a patrolman arrests you. Shoot up a bank and you get a Tac Unit. In either case you will get a jury very much the same as any other (should you require it) and that jury will likely be deciding their ruling on everything except the effect.

[Simon Moon]

Pascal's Wager fails on every level.

Not every god believed to exist by humanity punishes disbelievers. The Hindu gods for example.

Not to mention, that even if a god does exist, it may not be any of the gods described in any of the various religious texts. Just because there is a text written about a particular deity, or there is a large population of people that believe it exists, doesn't offer a shred of evidence that it does exist.

What if the god that does exist, rewards those of us that use the mind 'he' gave us to determine that there is insufficient evidence and reasoned argument to justify belief 'he' exists? And 'he' punishes those gullible enough to believe in one of the various Bronze Age tribal deities (Yahweh, Ahura Mazda, Shiva, Allah, etc)?

Why would a deity value most those that worship him? What a silly attribute for a deity harbor.

[WhatIfGodWasJustAMyth]

Pascal's Wager fails on every level.

Not every god believed to exist by humanity punishes disbelievers. The Hindu gods for example.

Not to mention, that even if a god does exist, it may not be any of the gods described in any of the various religious texts. Just because there is a text written about a particular deity, or there is a large population of people that believe it exists, doesn't offer a shred of evidence that it does exist.

What if the god that does exist, rewards those of us that use the mind 'he' gave us to determine that there is insufficient evidence and reasoned argument to justify belief 'he' exists? And 'he' punishes those gullible enough to believe in one of the various Bronze Age tribal deities (Yahweh, Ahura Mazda, Shiva, Allah, etc)?

Why would a deity value most those that worship him? What a silly attribute for a deity harbor.

Pascal formulated the wager within a Christian framework.

1."God is, or He is not"
2.A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
3.According to reason, you can defend either of the propositions.
4.You must wager. (It's not optional.)
5.Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6.Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.

[Simon Moon]

Pascal formulated the wager within a Christian framework.

I completely understand the wager was formulated within a Christian framework, which is the main reason why it fails. It ignores other gods.

1."God is, or He is not"
2.A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
3.According to reason, you can defend either of the propositions.
4.You must wager. (It's not optional.)
5.Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6.Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.

Yes, these steps are a perfect explanation on why PW fails. It is a false dichotomy.

The existence of the Christian God is not 50/50, so it is not a the same as a coin toss. The coin has an infinite number of sides.