Decision Making: expected utility decisions. possible conditions. it rains 8. it doesn t rain -5. it rains -12. it doesn t rain 7

Transcription

1 Pascal s Wager Decision Making: expected utility decisions choices Take your umbrella Don t take your umbrella possible conditions utility it rains 8 it doesn t rain -5 it rains -12 it doesn t rain 7 sum 3-5 Rationality requires that you maximize expected utility Decision Making: expected utility decisions under risk choices Take your umbrella Don't take your umbrella possible conditions utility probability of rain it rains -8 35% it doesn't rain 5 65% it rains % it doesn't rain 7 65% weighted sum

2 Pascal s Wager choices Believe God exists* Don't believe God exists* possible conditions utility probability that God exists God exists p God doesn't exist -a 1 p God exists g= p God doesn't exist +b 1 p weighte d sum - * and you act accordingly, a,b,g > 0 Weighted sum: belief: ws = x p + a x (1 p) = non-belief: ws = g x p + +b x (1 p) = - (taking g= )

3 Kierkegaard s Leap Reason moves from existence and not toward it when I speak of proving God s existence I do not prove anything, least of all existence, but merely develop the content of a conception. (91) P1: The baseball hit me in the arm, hurt me and gave me a bruise P2: Anything that causes pain exists C: The baseball exists Question: Why does this not prove that the baseball exists? Question: Why can one not prove the existence of a thing?

4 God is the Unknown The paradoxical passion of the Reason thus comes repeatedly into collision with the Unknown, which does indeed exist, but is unknown, and insofar does not exist. (93) Question: What could Kierkegaard mean by this? Question: How does he know that the Unknown exists? What then is the Unknown? It is the limit to which the Reason repeatedly comes, and insofar, substituting a static form of conception for the dynamic, it is the different, the absolutely different. (93) Question: What could Kierkegaard mean by this? The Reason has brought God as near as possible, and yet he is as far away as ever. (94) Question: What could Kierkegaard mean by this?

5 Kierkegaard s Leap Reason moves from existence and not toward it when I speak of proving God s existence I do not prove anything, least of all existence, but merely develop the content of a conception. (91) P1: The baseball hit me in the arm, hurt me and gave me a bruise P2: Anything that causes pain exists C: The baseball exists Question: Why does this not prove that the baseball exists? (in stating P1 we have already assumed that the baseball exists) Question: Why can one not prove the existence of a thing? (we must always reason from existence, meaning that we must assume that things exist, based on experience, and investigate their properties, we cannot prove that something with a given set of properties exists/existence is not a predicate/property)

6 God is the Unknown The paradoxical passion of the Reason thus comes repeatedly into collision with the Unknown, which does indeed exist, but is unknown, and insofar does not exist. (93) Question: What could Kierkegaard mean by this? (he believes that the Unknown exists by a leap of faith but the Unknown doesn t exist in so far as what we can take to exist, or know exists, are only those things that we can perceive) Question: How does he know that the Unknown exists? (he doesn t really know that God exists since religious belief requires a leap of faith and does not come through rational argument. Arguments might convince someone to believe that God exists, but the argument itself does not establish this. Accepting the conclusion always involves a leap) What then is the Unknown? It is the limit to which the Reason repeatedly comes, and insofar, substituting a static form of conception for the dynamic, it is the different, the absolutely different. (93) Question: What could Kierkegaard mean by this? (cannot be known and cannot be expressed) The Reason has brought God as near as possible, and yet he is as far away as ever. (94) Question: What could Kierkegaard mean by this? (Reason can extend our conception of what God is like, but God, being unknowable, always has His true nature hidden from us)