Q&A: Pascal — Why It’s Worth Being Religious — An Economic, Perhaps Even Moral, Implication
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Pascal — Why It’s Worth Being Religious — An Economic, Perhaps Even Moral, Implication
Question
Below is a post from the economics blog I value most highly. The post deals with topics the Rabbi talks about.
Answer
Cute, but of course not correct. Pascal’s consideration is addressed to an individual person, and an individual person will not bring about the problematic outcome of masses of charlatans. The same is true of an individual person who is considering whether to take an ineffective medicine. Only if you bring in Kant’s categorical imperative does the argument become valid. And even then, I doubt, in my view, how far an individual person who stands to gain a great deal really has to make a Kantian calculation like this. As far as he is concerned, let the world fill up with charlatans—he wants to be cured.