It has been suggested that, in a situation of great uncertainty over a vital issue, we should adopt Blaise Pascal’s strategy. Pascal famously argued that, in a situation in which it could not be proved either that God exists or that he does not exist, with the evidence for and against the question broadly speaking balanced, the rational thing to do is to gamble on his existence. If we win we shall escape judgment, and if we lose there won’t be a judgment to escape. Whereas if we gamble on his non-existence, we shall suffer punishment if we are wrong and be obliterated if we are correct, and we have a 50-50 chance of being wrong.
So, perhaps, in Pascalian fashion, in a situation of radical uncertainty, coupled with the possibly dangerous consequences of inaction, we should gamble on the global warming ‘scientific consensus’ being correct.
The trouble with Pascal’s wager is that there is not just one alternative, atheism or theism. So it’s not a case of a straight wager for or against ‘God’, for this raises the question ‘Which god ought I to wager on?’
