6min chapter

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Rationally Speaking #181 - William MacAskill on "Moral Uncertainty"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

CHAPTER

The Problem With Pascal's Wager

Pascal's wager is a much better argument that people give it credit for. I could imagine maybe some versions of utilitarianism having trouble with outcomes that we stipulate have infinite goodness or infinite badness. It also seems to me like it might come up for moral theories, moral views of the world that just insist that there's no exchange rate. Like, you just can't lie. Lying is just always wrong. There's no amount of good that you could do in the world with a lie that would make the lie okay. And if it's infinitely wrong, then even a small, no matter how low a probability you have in that view, then you would get the conclusion

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