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Doubt, majority, and profit expectation

שו”תCategory: Talmudic studyDoubt, majority, and profit expectation
asked 9 years ago

Regarding what we talked about Pascal’s Wager, you said that if you are faced with a decision that has a small chance of something serious happening, you think you should go with the odds without considering the expected profit (since the experiment is a one-time experiment).
But in the world of Halacha, there is a great rule, doubt from the Torah to the grave, meaning that even if the majority of the poskim (or most of the chances) permit something, we still follow the small chance (or minority of poskim) that it is forbidden (there are exceptions to the rule and doubt is a possibility). The reason we follow the minority, I assume, is because the expectation of profit (or loss) is still significant and therefore it is what ultimately influences the decision (even though the experiment here is also a one-time one).


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 9 years ago
Error. Doubt is only a situation of equal chances. When the odds are not equal, the majority follows. And so it is in a situation of a majority and a minority of adjudicators. But this discussion does not concern us in any case, because when there is doubt whether a piece of meat is pork or lamb, then it is not a choice between two sides that has a halachic meaning. Eating lamb has no halachic meaning and eating pork does. Therefore, here it is not at all a calculation of halachic meaning but rather the level of concern with which one should fear the prohibition.

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