Pascal’s Featherbed

Happiness, Truth, and Pragmatic Arguments for Theistic Belief

Abstract: Recent social scientific research suggests that religious belief often leads to favorable health and happiness outcomes. This article explores whether such outcomes can justify adopting religious belief on pragmatic grounds; it uses as a test case Jeff Jordan’s recent reworking of William James’s pragmatic argument for theism, which he calls the “Jamesian wager”. I conclude that the Jamesian wager fails, for two reasons. First, although religious belief may turn out to be false, the wager fails to consider whether falsity would make any resulting happiness illusory, and as a result, less ethically worthy. Second, the wager fails to give adequate consideration to the potential harms of religious belief. In the course of defending these criticisms, the relationship between happiness and truth is explored, as is the question of how to weigh religion’s benefits against its harms.

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Recent years have seen the emergence of much fascinating social scientific research into

the causes and consequences of religious beliefs of various types. Prominent examples of this

research include Ronald Ingleheart and Pippa Norris’s global study finding a correlation between

religious belief and “existential insecurity” (the more vulnerable people of a given country are to

health and financial threats, the higher the level of religiosity those people exhibit) (Ingleheart

and Norris 2004); Harold Koenig, Michael McCullough and David Larson’s massive study

linking religious belief with favorable health outcomes, such as lower rates of heart attacks

(Koenig et al. 2001); and David Sloan Wilson’s evolutionary account of religious belief, which

stresses religion’s utility for producing feelings of group cohesion and solidarity (Wilson 2002;

cf. Haidt 2007). These studies suggest that religious belief has a good deal of “secular utility”—

that is, that it has significant beneficial consequences for human happiness in this life (as

opposed to the afterlife). Not unexpectedly, philosophical defenders of religious belief have

pointed approvingly to some of these studies: if religious belief enhances one’s happiness in this

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life, these defenders ask, is that not a sufficiently good reason for attempting to inculcate

religious belief in oneself (or to hang on to it, if one already possesses it)? That question is the

subject of this essay.

In fact it is a complex question, and in order to make tackling this question a more

manageable task, I will narrow my focus to evaluating one recent defense of religious belief on

pragmatic grounds, namely, Jeff Jordan’s defense of (what he calls) “the Jamesian wager.” The

name is an allusion to William James’s famous paper, “The Will to Believe” (James 1956),

which defends the legitimacy of religious belief on account of its ability to improve one’s life in

this world. Jordan presents himself as working in the Jamesian tradition, and indeed, Jordan is

currently one of the leading philosophical defenders of pragmatic arguments for theistic belief.

Moreover, the Jamesian wager is the centerpiece of Jordan’s recent book-length study of

pragmatic arguments for theistic belief (Jordan 2006).1 Thus, it is a good test case for the

prospects of pragmatic arguments that stress religion’s secular utility.

In this essay, I will argue that the Jamesian wager is unsound, for two main reasons. First,

Jordan fails to consider whether the falsity of religious belief (should this in fact be the case)

detracts from the ethical worth of the happiness that stems from such belief (in such a case the

happiness is an “illusory” happiness, one might say). The relationship between happiness and

truth is an important issue, albeit one that has yet to be given its due in the philosophical

literature on happiness. My discussion of this issue should thus be of interest to ethicists

generally, not just philosophers of religion. My second reason for rejecting the Jamesian wager is

that despite an explicit effort on his behalf to do so, Jordan fails to give adequate consideration to

the potential harms of religious belief. I will reveal this inadequacy, and explore some of the

1 Unless otherwise indicated, subsequent parenthetical page references will be to this work.

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subtleties involved in the important task of rationally weighing religion’s potential harms against

its potential benefits.

Notwithstanding my conclusion that Jordan’s Jamesian argument fails, however, I do in

this essay not go so far as to conclude that all such pragmatic arguments for theistic belief are

bound to fail. I do not have such a powerful argument; and indeed, my criticisms of Jordan’s

argument will identify potentially fruitful avenues of argument that pragmatic defenders of

religion would be wise to explore, in order to move the debate forward.

Pascal vs. James

Jordan judges the Jamesian wager to be more convincing in the final analysis than

Pascal’s own, much better-known wager, which defends religious belief as a rational bet to make

given the chance that it leads to infinite happiness in the next life. While Jordan is keen to

defend Pascal’s wager against what he considers to be the most important objections, he

recognizes that many critics judge these objections to be fatal to wager. In particular, many

philosophers invoke the so-called “Many Gods” objection against Pascal: these critics (for

example, Mackie 1982, p. 203, and Martin 1983) note that as long as there is some non-zero

chance that a “deviant” God exists who punishes religious believers (for being too credulous,

say) and rewards skeptics (for their carefulness of belief, say), then in such a case non-belief

carries a chance of infinite happiness, just as religious belief carries a chance of infinite

happiness in the case of a more traditional god. The result is that Pascal’s wager ends in a

stalemate, since both belief and non-belief each carry a chance of gaining salvation and a risk of

losing salvation.

Although Jordan is not himself convinced by the Many Gods objection (see his lengthy

reply to it on pp. 73-101), he considers a chief advantage of the Jamesian wager to lie in its

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ability to escape the stalemate that results from adding a deviant God to the Pascalian decision

matrix. Essentially, the Jamesian wager breaks the otherworldly tie between a deviant and

traditional God by invoking the beneficial this-worldly consequences of traditional religious

belief; according to Jordan, these benefits tip the decision-theoretic balance back in favor of

religious belief.

Before describing in some detail the structure of this alternative Jamesian wager,

however, one final point of comparison between Pascal’s wager and the Jamesian wager is in

order. In particular, I wish to note the modest ambitions of the Jamesian wager compared with

its Pascalian predecessor. For starters, according to Jordan, the Jamesian wager applies only if a

very specific condition obtains, namely, the arguments for and against God’s existence are fairly

balanced in rational force, so that there is roughly an evidential tie. Additionally, the wager

concludes only that belief in God is rationally permissible, not that it is rationally required.

Although when laying the argument out Jordan states its conclusion simply as “one should

believe in God” (p. 29), his detailed defense of it relies on a premise asserting only that “it is

rationally and morally permissible” to believe some proposition p (such as “God exists”) in

certain cases where large benefits are in the offing (pp. 51 and 52, my emphasis). Hence, we

must interpret Jordan’s Jamesian wager as concluding only that religious belief for pragmatic

reasons is rationally and morally permissible, in the case of an evidential tie between the

arguments for and against God’s existence.

This is a far cry from the version of Pascal’s wager that is now canonical in the literature,

according to which, even if there is a strong preponderance of evidence against God’s existence,

each person still has a prudential duty, not just permission, to inculcate religious belief in himself

or herself. This is because even if God’s existence is on balance unlikely, so long as there is at

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least a speck of a chance that God exists and requires theistic belief for salvation, it follows that

theistic belief carries infinite expected utility, and thereby becomes rationally obligatory belief.

Reflecting on the difference between this strong canonical conclusion and the much more modest

conclusion of the Jamesian wager, I am reminded of a remark by Erasmus Darwin (Charles

Darwin’s grandfather), who once referred to Unitarianism as “a feather-bed to catch a falling

Christian.”2 I am tempted to judge the Jamesian wager similarly, and refer to it as a featherbed

for a falling Pascalian—that is, as an argument that will appeal to people who would like

Pascal’s wager to be sound, but who cannot bring themselves to embrace its more grandiose

ambitions and otherworldly focus. All the same, even the Jamesian wager’s less grandiose claim

that religious belief is morally and rationally permissible, provided the evidence for and against

God is tied in strength, is still a grander claim that many philosophers will antecedently accept.

Hence, it is worth exploring whether the Jamesian wager establishes its conclusion.

The Jamesian Wager

Key to the Jamesian wager is what Jordan calls the “Next Best Thing” rule (pp. 14-15).

According to this proposed rule of rational choice, if in a case of decision under uncertainty,

some option x has a best case outcome at least as good as all rival options’ best case outcomes,

and a worst case outcome at least as good as all rival options’ worst case outcomes, and

furthermore, x has better outcomes than its rivals in all other cases, then it is rational to choose x.

In other words, in a case where options are tied at extremes, but one option is superior in all

middle ranges, the Next Best Thing rule says to choose that option. This is quite relevant, for as

we have seen, a decision-theoretic tie results (according to many critics of Pascal’s wager) from

the inclusion of a deviant God into the relevant decision matrix. Rather than end the argument

2 As reported by Charles Darwin. See Letter 2461of The Darwin Correspondence Project (http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-2461.html [accessed September 20, 2007]).

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there, however, the Next Best Thing rule directs us to examine which option, religious belief or

non-belief, carries greater expected value in this world. And in this regard, Jordan argues,

religious belief clearly comes out ahead, even in the state of affairs where there is no God—a

state of affairs that Jordan calls “naturalism.” Jordan encapsulates this claim in a premise he cites

frequently, which reads “theistic belief has an outcome better than the other available alternatives

if naturalism obtains” (p. 28). I will henceforth refer to this premise as THIN (Theists = Happier

In Naturalism, that is, theists are happier than non-theists even in the case of naturalism).

In defense of THIN, Jordan cites recent social scientific research on religious belief (pp.

90-94). An especially influential compendium of such research is Koenig et al. 2001, which claims

that religious believers are on average happier and healthier than non-believers. According to a

recent meta-analysis of studies of religious belief and happiness, for instance, 80 percent of such

studies have found at least one significant, positive correlation between the two variables (Koenig

et al. 2001, pp. 117). On the subject of health, a recent meta-analysis reported that frequent

religious attendance (at least once a week) is associated with a 25-33 percent decrease in mortality

during follow-up periods from five to twenty-eight years (the length of the follow-up varying from

study to study) (ibid., pp. 322-330).

For the sake of argument, I will follow Jordan in trusting the results of these social

scientific studies, in order to focus on the more philosophical issues raised by the Jamesian wager.

The reader should be aware, though, that these studies have recently been subjected to a vigorous,

book-length critique by a prominent scientist (Sloan 2006), which raises serious methodological

concerns about the research, such as failures to account for confounding variables as well

disturbing evidence of researchers making post-study changes in hypotheses to match the data. I

will set aside these empirical controversies for present purposes, however, in order to focus on my

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two main philosophical objections to the Jamesian wager, which I believe to be decisive against it

in its current form.

Before describing these two objections, however, it is worth briefly mentioning that I am

also choosing to set aside a third possible objection. This is an objection to one of the Jamesian

wager’s conditions of application, namely, the condition that supposes there is an evidential tie

between arguments for and against God’s existence. Jordan judges it reasonable to believe such a

tie obtains (p. 110), but many readers will demur. Still, I believe it would be unwise of such

readers to rest their case against the Jamesian wager on doubts regarding this supposed evidential

tie. The question whether such an evidential tie obtains is a large question, and to answer it in a

thorough fashion would require a time-consuming—and contentious—comparative survey of the

most important arguments for and against God’s existence. More narrowly targeted objections to

the Jamesian wager are preferable to this, and it such objections that I intend to defend. Thus, for

purposes of this paper I am prepared to grant Jordan the supposition that an evidential tie obtains,

and ask whether, given this supposition, the Jamesian wager succeeds in justifying belief in God

despite the evidential tie.

Prior to moving forward in this fashion, though, I do wish briefly to make one critical

point. For we must ask which religious doctrine Jordan has in mind when he claims there exists an

evidential tie. Jordan says “theism” (p. 110), which he defines this as follows: “Theism is the

proposition that God exists. God we will understand as that individual, if any, who is omnipotent,

omniscient, and morally perfect” (pg. 1; emphasis in the original). In other words, theism is the

belief that the god of natural theology exists. However, even following Jordan and supposing that

the philosophical arguments for and against this sort of divine individual are evenly balanced, we

would have to go on to ask whether bare belief in such an individual—bare belief in “natural

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religion,” we might say—is enough to bring with it the pragmatic health and happiness benefits

that the Jamesian wager emphasizes.

I doubt this. The alleged benefits of religious belief cited by the studies in question most

likely come from immersing oneself within the richly detailed ritual, worship, community, and

lifestyle of a “revealed religion”—Christianity, in the case of the majority of individuals taking

part in the studies. If so, then the Jamesian wagerer must wager on behalf of a revealed religion.

Given his claim that the Jamesian wager is used only in the case of an evidential tie, however,

Jordan is thereby committed to claiming that the evidence for and against the truth of a particular

revealed religion is evenly matched. That is a much stronger claim than the corresponding claim

regarding the god of natural theology. For in this case, it is not simply general arguments against

God’s existence (such as the argument from evil) that must either be defused or matched with

opposing pro-God arguments of equal force; the same must also be done with respect to

specifically anti-Christian arguments, such as objections to the coherence of traditional key

doctrines such as the Trinity, the Atonement, and Original Sin; skeptical arguments that point

toward the Bible’s seeming approval of genocide, slavery, the subjugation of women, and the

eternal punishment of non-believers; and skeptical arguments that question the reliability of the

Bible’s historical claims (see Martin 1993 for a book-length presentation of arguments such as

these, and others). It is far from clear that these arguments can be either defused or matched with

opposing pro-Christianity arguments of equal force, and to that extent it is far from clear whether

the conditions of applicability for Jordan’s Jamesian wager in fact obtain. However, rather than

get embroiled in theological debates specific to Christianity, in what follows I will waive this

concern and focus on more philosophically-minded objections to the Jamesian wager.

Objection 1: The Value of Fantastical Happiness

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The Threat of a “Fantasy Discount”

My first philosophical objection arises from doubts about the theory of prudential value

—that is, the theory of personal well-being / happiness—used by Jordan’s version of the

Jamesian wager. The nearest Jordan comes to defining happiness occurs on page 90, where he

writes:

To get a grip on this complex issue [of happiness] let us adopt something like Bentham’s

model of utility (duration plus intensity), stipulating that theistic belief provides more

empirical benefit than not believing, even if no deity exists (a better ‘this-world’

outcome), if, on average, believing theistically ranks higher than not believing theistically

in at least one of two categories, reported satisfaction and mortality (life span), and is

never lower in either of the two. Moreover, let us assume that happiness correlates with

greater life satisfaction.

While Jordan shies away from identifying happiness with feelings of life satisfaction (he says

only that happiness “correlates” with these), he uses such feelings as a proxy for happiness in his

defense of Jamesian wager: theists’ allegedly higher levels of life satisfaction, along with longer

life spans, are the chief pragmatic reasons to become a theist.

Jordan’s use of reported satisfaction as a key to happiness, however, is problematic. In

saying this I have in mind more than just the suspicion that religious believers are more likely

than non-believers to report feeling happy when in fact they are not (“God loves me, so I should

be happy; therefore, I am”). Instead, I have in mind the deeper worry regarding the prudential

worth of feelings of happiness that stem from false beliefs. In saying this I am not thereby

declaring that theism is false; in fact, I am in no position to declare this since, as noted above, I

have for purposes of this paper granted Jordan’s supposition that there is an evidential tie

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between the arguments for and against God’s existence. However, it is consistent with this

supposition that theism may in fact be false, and we have seen Jordan himself recognizes in his

key premise THIN (Theists = Happier in Naturalism, that is, in happier than non-theists in the

case where God does not exist). Hence any full evaluation of the Jamesian wager must confront

the important question: if theists’ beliefs are in fact false, do the feelings of happiness rooted in

those beliefs lose any of their worth on account of this falsity?

Some special terminology will enable a more precise statement of this question. I will

henceforth refer to feelings of happiness that stem from false beliefs as “fantastical happiness,”

and to feelings of happiness that stem from true beliefs as “realistic happiness.” The key

question, I submit, is whether a sophisticated value theory will discount the prudential value of

fantastical happiness, owing to its fantastical nature, and if so, to what extent. In other words, if

we take two feelings of happiness quantitatively equal in terms of felt pleasure (as measured by

the Benthamite dimensions of intensity, duration, etc.), where one feeling is fantastical in nature

and the other realistic, is it the case that the latter contributes more to a person’s well-being than

the former, other things equal?

I favor an answer of “Yes,” for there are powerful arguments against accounts of

happiness that insist that only subjective feelings of satisfaction matter for happiness, regardless

of whether they make any contact with reality. For instance, recall Robert Nozick’s famous

“experience machine” thought experiment, in which a machine exists that can produce for you a

lifetime of illusory, happy experiences that you will forever mistake for reality. Should you step

into such a machine? Nozick rightly judges you should not (Nozick 1974, pp. 42-45). Or

consider Thomas Nagel’s example of a man who derives feelings of happiness from people

whom he believes are friends, but who in fact ridicule him behind his back at every turn without

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him ever knowing (Nagel 1979, p. 4); are we really to judge that this treachery makes him no

less well off at all, owing to his ignorance? These objections (the experience machine in

particular) are well-known objections to wholly subjective accounts of happiness; Jordan’s

failure to address such objections is a serious shortcoming of his defense of the Jamesian wager.

In response, Jordan may reply that unlike Nozick, who stipulates that the beliefs one

acquires in an experience machine are false, the Jamesian wagerer by contrast does not know

whether a belief in God is true or false. Thus, unlike those who would urge us to step into the

experience machine, the Jamesian wagerer is not knowingly embracing falsehood. This is right,

but it does let Jordan off the hook, for two reasons. First, the negative conclusion of the

experience machine thought experiment surely does not depend entirely on the fact that those

who enter the machine are knowingly embracing falsehood. For instance, it is easy to imagine a

variation of the thought experiment in which a person is hooked up to the machine while asleep

without her knowing it; as a result, she happily lives out the rest of her life in the machine with

no way of ever recognizing she is in it. How should we regard such a person’s feelings of

happiness? Surely the same conclusion stands as in the original thought experiment: the feelings

of happiness experienced in the machine are of less value on account of their being rooted in

falsehood rather than reality, despite the fact that the individual is not to blame for having false

beliefs. Thus, should the Jamesian wagerer’s theistic beliefs turn out to be false through no fault

of his or her own, it stills seems that we should similarly judge the value of any felt happiness to

be reduced on account of its stemming from falsehood.

There is a second reason that feelings of happiness rooted in false belief are a problem for

the Jamesian wager, even despite the supposition of an evidential tie for and against God’s

existence. This is because by Jordan’s own admission, recall, the key test case for the Jamesian

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wager is the case of “naturalism”—Jordan’s word for the state of affairs in which no god of any

sort exists. The case of naturalism is key, I earlier explained, because the two non-naturalistic

cases considered in the decision matrix—namely, the case of a god who rewards religious belief

and a god who rewards non-belief—lead to exactly opposite outcomes in terms of salvation, and

hence to a decision-theoretic tie. As a result, the case of naturalism is the crucial tie-breaking

case. Hence the importance of Jordan’s own key premise THIN, noted earlier, which explicitly

asserts that “theistic belief has an outcome better than the other available alternatives if

naturalism obtains” (p. 28). This means that even though the Jamesian wagerer is not knowingly

embracing falsehood, the Jamesian wagerer is doing this: in order to break the decision-theoretic

tie regarding salvation he or she is looking to feelings of this-worldly happiness produced by

religious belief and deeming them to be valuable, despite the fact that these feelings stem

ultimately from beliefs that are acknowledged to be false on the hypothesis of naturalism. In

other words, the Jamesian wagerer’s attitude can be summarized as follows: “Given the

evidential tie, I do not know whether my religious beliefs are true or false, but even if they are

false, they have still contributed to my happiness in this world, and that is reason enough to keep

such beliefs.” Hence, the Jamesian wagerer, despite his or her official judgment that an

evidential tie obtains regarding God’s existence, is all the same committed to asserting the

positive value of feelings of happiness that are rooted in false belief.

This fact is quite significant, for inasmuch as the Jamesian wager looks to fantastical

happiness to tip the scales in favor of religious belief, it follows that a sizeable enough discount

—call it the “fantasy discount”—will doom Jordan’s argument. After all, even if, prior to any

fantasy discount, the size (and hence, the prima facie value) of religious believers’ fantastical

happiness appears greater than the value of non-believers’ realistic happiness, it may be that in

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terms of prudential value, the non-believer’s happiness in fact outweighs the believer’s sort once

a plausible discount owing to falsehood is assessed against the believer’s happiness. In such an

event, the Next Best Thing rule would instruct the Jamesian wagerer to choose, not theistic

belief, but non-belief—exactly the opposite of Jordan’s desired result!

Moreover, this non-theistic result can follow even when the discounting function in

question assumes a modest form. All that is required is that the fantasy discount lower the

positive prudential value of the fantastical happiness by enough to wipe out the initial, prima

facie advantage this happiness enjoyed in quantity. Hence, given that Jordan’s conclusion

regarding the happiness advantage of theistic belief over non-belief is a modest one (“With

regard to happiness, then, there is sufficient evidence that believing theistically outranks not

believing, at least slightly” [p. 91; emphasis added]), it follows that the fantasy discount likewise

need only be slight in order to push the Jamesian wager into an endorsement of non-belief.

Does Falsity Matter Per Se?

So far my case for a fantasy discount has rested on two thought experiments: a modified

experience machine scenario (in which the machine’s resident is put there by others while

asleep), and Nagel’s scenario in which false friends mock a person behind his back.

Interestingly, both these cases are cases in which a person is harmed by others’ intentional

doings. This leaves an opening for a possible response by Jordan, since the Jamesian wagerer,

should his or her theistic beliefs turn out to be false, need not be the unwitting dupe of others’

nefarious shenanigans. Unlike the cases just mentioned, there is no guilty party responsible for

the falsehood. This is relevant, for one might wonder whether in such cases the value discount

applies in virtue of the person in question being a victim of others; that is, perhaps in such cases

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our disinclination to fully credit the individual’s feelings of happiness lies in our recognition of

the situation’s injustice, rather than in our knowledge of the falsity of the individual’s beliefs.

Accordingly, an important follow-up question is whether mere falsity of belief is by itself

sufficient to trigger any discounting function. Unfortunately for the Jamesian wagerer, an

example suggests to me that the answer to this is “Yes, slightly.” For instance, I can recall my

elation on the day of the U.S. presidential elections in 2000 when shortly after the polls closed in

the evening, the television networks called the election for Al Gore. Of course, these networks’

calls were soon thereafter retracted, beginning the long phase of political limbo that eventually

resulted in George W. Bush obtaining the Presidency. Looking back now at my earlier elation, I

do not think to myself, “Oh well, at least I got some high value happy feelings out of my

mistaken beliefs.” Instead, the pleasures seem rather hollow, almost as if they were elements of

a cruel hoax.

Admittedly, this is a retrospective judgment of mine that is made in full awareness of the

falsity of my past belief in Gore’s victory. This feature, Jordan might insist, makes such a case

dissimilar to the Jamesian wager, in which (in this world, at least!) a theist never learns either

way of the truth value of his or her belief in God. To make the cases more analogous, we might

suppose counterfactually that the TV network calls of a Gore victory triggered in me an ecstasy

that in turn caused a fatal brain aneurysm a few minutes later, so that I never learned of the

electoral mix-up. Jordan could then point out that in such a case my relatives might really have

said something like “Well, at least he died with a smile on his face,” which suggests that my

feelings of happiness indeed had some value for me. This is so, but not relevant; the relevant

question is whether these feelings possess as much value as they would have possessed had,

contrary to fact, my belief in a Gore victory been true. I think the answer here is No, for in the

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actual case of the electoral mix-up there would presumably be a bittersweet element to my

relatives’ claim that “he died with a smile”—a bittersweet element that would not be present had

Gore actually won and my feelings of happiness been realistic ones.

These reflections suggest that the true or falsity of one’s beliefs per se is relevant to the

worth possessed by any feelings of happiness those beliefs occasion. And indeed, the relevance

of belief’s truth value per se to personal well-being is acknowledged by leading theorists of

personal well-being. For example, although G. E. Moore and James Griffin do not explicitly call

for a fantasy “discount,” their brief remarks about the positive value of personal experiences

rooted in true belief are consistent with such a discount (Griffin 1986, p. 9; Moore 1993, pp. 244-

47 [sections 118-119]). More explicitly, L. W. Sumner has written a book-length treatise

defending a conception of well-being as “authentic happiness”; on this conception, happiness

(which Sumner understands as satisfaction with one’s life) maximally contributes to a person’s

well-being provided it meets both an information requirement and an autonomy requirement

(Sumner 1996, p. 172).3 Significant for our purposes is the fact that the information requirement

identifies illusory happiness (i.e. happiness rooted in false belief) as inauthentic, and thus

typically of less value to one’s well-being. It is true that owing to a general stance of anti-

paternalism, Sumner himself is reluctant to declare that each “victim” of fantastical happiness is

rationally required to discount (retrospectively) the prudential value of that happiness; he wishes

to let each individual determine the appropriate discount himself or herself (ibid., pp. 160-161).

If Sumner is right, this variability complicates my objection to the Jamesian wager but does not

3 Regarding the autonomy requirement, Sumner argues that a person’s judgments of life satisfaction, to be constitutive of well-being, should not be distorted by an adaptation to oppression, exploitation, indoctrination, or other “autonomy-subverting mechanisms” (Sumner 1996., pp. 167-171). Although this requirement is indeed relevant to the question of religious belief’s contribution to individual well-being (think for instance of religious indoctrination), it is not a topic I will pursue here.

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defeat it; it is sufficient for my purposes that individuals will typically choose at least a modest

discount.

Manufactured Happiness

Indeed, there is a further problem, beyond merely failing to meet Sumner’s information

requirement, with the sort of happiness valued by the Jamesian wager—a problem that itself stems

from a conception of authentic happiness much like Sumner’s. For consider that the happiness-

producing religious beliefs recommended by the Jamesian wager are not just false (in the relevant

case of naturalism); they are also willfully self-induced by the wagerer—and what is more,

willfully self-induced in order to gain access to the feelings of happiness in question. We might

say that the feelings in question are willfully manufactured by agent himself. This artificiality

surely puts them in tension with Sumner’s ideal of authenticity, and hence an approach such as his

that defines well-being as authentic happiness should recommend discounting such feelings’ value.

To see this point, consider a man—let’s call him “Twenty-First Century Al”—who

possesses some evidence that he is related to, and just as much evidence that he is not related to,

the first king of England, Alfred the Great. In other words, Twenty-First Century Al is in an

evidential tie. However, finding the prospect of this illustrious heritage to be a source of personal

esteem, inspiration, and satisfaction—that is, a source of feelings of happiness—Al mentally

assents to the proposition that he is a descendent of Alfred, and acts on the assumption it is true

(say, by going on treks to historical sites associated with Alfred, immersing himself in Alfredian

lore, filling his house with Alfredian memorabilia, seeking out others who believe themselves to be

descendents of Alfred, and so on). Eventually, he comes to believe he is genuinely a descendent of

Alfred. (This two-step process, of (1) assenting to a proposition and then (2) acting on the

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assumption it is true, is the “belief-inducing technology” that Jordan himself recommends by way

of producing theistic belief in oneself over a span of time [p. 56].)

Is there not still something inferior about the value of the happiness that Twenty-First

Century Al derives from his life’s pursuit, compared with other possible pursuits he might have

embraced? Is he really as well-off with this life project as he would have been with some

alternative project that generated feelings of happiness whose realistic nature is not in doubt? I

do not think so. After all, while Al’s feelings of happiness are not as artificial as they would be

had he knowingly self-induced a false belief, surely it is problematic that he is willing to stake a

central project of his life on what by his own admission is just as likely as not to turn out to be a

fantasy. This shows that he does not value staying in touch with reality as highly as he ought. To

that extent, the manufactured feelings of happiness central to his life possesses an inauthentic

nature—even an escapist taint—and hence (I suggest), they must be discounted in their

prudential value. To deny this is to come dangerously close to approving of making a drug of

one’s faculty of belief. We might say that even though Jordan explicitly turns his back on Marx

(p. 94), he unwittingly, and ironically, comes close to endorsing religion as the “opium of the

people” (Marx 1977, p. 64).

Avoiding the Fantasy Discount: Religion as Medicine?

Of course, it is not always wrong to take drugs—certainly not when one is sick, for

instance, and here the alleged health benefits of religious belief mentioned earlier are relevant. We

might say that within a pragmatic argument that emphasizes health benefits, religion is still akin to

a drug, but akin to a therapeutic drug rather than a recreational drug. Let us refer a form of the

wager that emphasizes objective health benefits (such as a reduced rate of heart disease and the

like), as opposed to higher levels of reported life satisfaction, as “the medicalized Jamesian

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wager.”4 I believe this to be the strongest form of the Jamesian wager. After all, it is one thing to

focus on feelings of happiness and endorse religion as the opium of the people; by contrast, it

seems at least a bit less scandalous to endorse religion as, say, the Lipitor of the people! (Lipitor is

common cholesterol-reducing drug; indeed, it is the world’s best-selling drug.5)

The medicalized wager’s focus on alleged health benefits of religion, then, may help to

blunt the worries raised in the previous sub-sections regarding whether a discounting function is

to be applied to fantastical happiness. For if a person’s religious beliefs lead to better health, this

may enable him or her to continue to experience sources of realistic happiness (feelings of

happiness that stem from intimate relationships, career success, worthwhile hobbies, etc.) longer

than he or she otherwise would. I cannot see any justification for discounting the value of these

further feelings of realistic happiness simply on account of their causal dependence, of an

indirect kind, on false religious beliefs. The falsehood seems too distant in the causal chain, so to

speak, to generate a discount.

And yet despite the superiority of the medicalized wager’s focus on religion’s alleged

health benefits, as compared with its alleged happiness benefits, even this version of the

Jamesian wager will face at least two objections. First, one may object that the alleged health

benefits of religion cannot in fact be cleanly separated from its alleged happiness benefits. For

we must ask why, if in fact religious belief leads to health benefits, it has this effect. After all, if

the health benefits are due simply to a healthy life style or to a supportive social network, then

these benefits are available to non-believers too. Thus, if religious beliefs have a genuine health

advantage that is inaccessible to non-believers, is it likely owing to the feelings of comfort and

confidence—that is, the feelings of happiness—that such beliefs generate. But this simply returns

4 For a discussion of religious believers’ rates of heart disease, see Koenig et al. 2001, pp. 231-249.5 Peter Loftis, “Pfizer Lipitor Patent Reissue Rejected,” The Wall Street Journal (August 16, 2007), available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118730255664700229.html [accessed December 10, 2007].

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us to the earlier claim, allegedly left behind by this improved version of the Jamesian Wager, that

religious belief is valuable insofar as it produces feelings of happiness.

Even waiving this worry, though, and supposing that (owing to a boost in health)

religious belief does indeed increase a person’s expected well-being all things considered, the

medicalized Jamesian Wager still faces a second objection, one more powerful than the first

objection just considered. For even if religious belief were to increase a person’s expected well-

being, it would be premature to conclude that this person has reason all-told to inculcate

religious belief in himself or herself. Such a conclusion would be premature, since we must first

confront the question of the reason-giving force of first-person judgments of well-being. After

all, reasons that stem from one’s own well-being are not always reasons with overriding force.

Most obviously, morality can demand that one accept sacrifices of personal well-being; I will

address this issue in the next section of this essay. Additionally, perfectionist ideals of human

excellence can recommend sacrifices of well-being.6 Climbing a mountain or pursuing an artistic

vision or tending to a sick relative is not always good for one’s health. And this leads straight

into my second reservation regarding a Jamesian wager that focuses on the alleged health

benefits of religious belief.

Return to the case of Twenty-First Century Al, and suppose that people’s beliefs in an

illustrious heritage were statistically linked to gains in health (owing to a comforting boost in

self-esteem, say). Would that genuinely give Al adequate reason, all-things-considered, to induce

in himself the belief that he is related to Alfred the Great? Even if it turns out that we ought not

to discount the genuine contribution to Al’s well-being made by any increase in health that stems

6 It is common to distinguish individual perfection (i.e. human excellence) from individual well-being. See for instance Kant 1996, pp. 517-520 (pp. 385-388, vol. 6, in the Prussian Academy Edition pagination); Sumner 1996, p. 19; and Hurka 1993, p. 17. (But see Toner 2006 for a critique of this distinction. Needless to say, the less distinction there is between human excellence and human well-being, the more problems there are for the Jamesian wager.)

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from his genealogical beliefs, we can surely wonder whether his life now displays less human

excellence inasmuch as he deliberately has placed at the center of his life beliefs that by his own

lights lack even a preponderance of evidence in their favor, and hence are just as likely to be

false as they are to be true. We ought to worry that if indeed he has purchased a greater quantity

of life, then it has come at an unacceptable cost in quality. Surely the same worry ought to apply

to the religious believer. If so, then a complete argument for the Jamesian wager would either

have to rebut this perfectionist objection or argue that the gain in expected well-being occasioned

by religious belief (if indeed there is such a gain) ought to trump the loss of excellence that

concomitantly occurs.

A Possible Response

I will end this section by exploring a possible response Jordan can make to my objection

based on worries regarding fantastical happiness. This response points once again to the

supposition of an evidential tie between the evidence for and against God’s existence, and argues

that given this parity, the same issues of fantastical happiness that I allege afflict the theist will

also afflict the atheist. For like the theist, the atheist’s belief that there is no God is just as likely

to be false as it is true; therefore, any happiness that stems from the atheist’s belief that there is

no God runs the same risk of being subjected to a fantasy discount. Hence, my objection tells as

much against atheism as it does against theism.7

This is correct: on the supposition of an evidential tie, my objection does entail that one

should not seek to derive one’s happiness from atheism-related beliefs and activities. This

observation, however, fails to rescue the Jamesian wager from my objection, for two reasons.

First, my objection yields a negative conclusion, namely, that Jordan’s pragmatic case for theistic

7 Jeff Jordan, personal communication (July 2009).

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belief fails. It does not aim to establish the positive conclusion that one has pragmatic reason to

inculcate atheistic belief in oneself. Indeed, given the supposition of an evidential tie for and

against God’s existence, the rational response is surely not atheism, but rather agnosticism.

Second, in any case most atheists do not locate their happiness in their atheistic beliefs—say, by

participating in atheistic practices that play the role in their lives that theistic practices (for

instance, worship) play in the lives of theists. Instead, atheists typically find their happiness

elsewhere, in human relationships, career pursuits, community service, political activism,

interesting hobbies, and the like. In short, to warn against trying to find happiness through theism,

as I am doing, is not ipso facto to recommend that one try to find happiness through atheism.

Objection 2: Religion’s Social Harms

Avoiding Harm: “The Non-Dogmatic Matrix”

My second main objection to the Jamesian wager calls into question whether the Next

Best Thing rule—the proposed principle of rational choice at the heart of Jordan’s Jamesian

wager—leads to an endorsement of religious belief even assuming a subjective theory of well-

being and no fantasy discount (that is, even assuming my first main objection is wrong-headed).

For Jordan rather blithely dismisses the possibility that religious belief might lead to greater

societal harms than non-belief, by claiming that social science has not proven religious belief to

be a net harm to society (pp. 94-95). Though Jordan does not himself canvas potential social

harms of religious belief, a reasonable list of possibilities would include religious war and

terrorism, religious bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, apathy about this-worldly suffering, anti-

intellectualism, support for authoritarian politicians, prudish judgmentalism, rigid orthodoxy in

place of human individuality, and an excessive zeal for moral condemnation and retributive

punishment.

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Of course, it is true—and important—that there are forms of compassionate religious

belief that oppose all these harms. Moreover, I agree with Jordan that social science has certainly

not proven that, owing to such harms, religious belief on the whole generates less societal well-

being than non-belief. All the same, the potential social harms of religion deserve more attention

than Jordan gives them. At the very least, in a case of decision under uncertainty (such as the

Jamesian wager), potential societal harms like these ought to be included in any decision matrix

as possible outcomes of widespread religious belief. There is surely no rule of rational choice

that tells us simply to leave out of our decision matrix, in a choice under uncertainty, all those

possible outcomes for which one lacks rigorous statistical evidence. But, of course, including

these bad outcomes as possibilities would mean that the Next Best Thing rule no long applies

(since it would no longer be the case that the various possible this-worldly outcomes of religious

belief are all superior to the various possible this-worldly outcomes of non-belief). The Jamesian

wager would be deprived of its key support.8

As best I can tell, Jordan’s only explicit response to this is a brief tu quoque argument:

“Atheism was the official creed of the Soviet Union and still is of China. Do we tote the many

millions murdered in those regimes to atheism, or to communism, or to both?” (p. 95). This is a

puzzling response. Even if atheism did cause these harms, all that follows is that we need to

include such harms in the relevant decision matrix as potential negative effects of atheism. It

does not follow that there is no need to include in the matrix any potential negative effects of

religion. So what does Jordan have in mind with this reply? The idea seems to be that if religion

has social harms, well, the same can be said of atheism, so that for all we know there is at least a

8 I have here assumed that possible social benefits and harms are relevant to the question of whether, all things considered, one ought to inculcate theistic belief in oneself. This is to assume that the Jamesian wager is more than merely a prudential wager. Jordan himself would agree; his thesis is that all things considered, one has reason to inculcate religious belief in oneself, and he defends the notion of “all things considered rationality” – which adjudicates conflicts between epistemic, prudential, and moral reasons—against charges that the notion is incoherent (pp. 61-63).

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decision-theoretic tie in this regard, if not an outright victory for theism. This tie is then to be

broken by reference to personal health and happiness benefits, where Jordan thinks theism is

clearly superior to atheism.

This is hardly sufficient, however. To begin with, even at the personal level religion can

cause harm: excessive feelings of guilt, a disabling fear of hell, rigid orthodoxy of thought,

sexual repression, a puritanical aversion to pleasure, acceptance of subordinate gender roles,

anxiety at the unknown, and so on. Moreover, even at the level of social harms, Jordan’s tu

quoque argument is lacking. Consider again the case of atheistic communism. With its quasi-

religious faith in the historical inevitability of communism, as well as its unrealistic account of

human nature, communist ideology was hardly an exemplar of the sort of critical thinking

recommended by modern atheistic philosophers. In practice, moreover, the ideology of

communist regimes became a totalizing dogma that discouraged critical thinking. Thus it is a

mistake to lay the harms perpetrated by such regimes at the feet of atheists generally.

Of course, there is an analogue of this reply in the case of religion. In response to any

invocation of the possible social harms (as well as possible personal harms), Jordan can, and

should, reply (1) that it is only particular types of religious belief that lead to the social and

personal harms in question, namely, the dogmatic and exclusionary types of religious belief; and

(2) that this sort of irrational belief is forbidden by the Jamesian wager’s respect for rationality

(as shown by its insistence on the need for an evidential tie before approving of pragmatic

belief). Thus, if the non-theist wishes to distance herself from the abuses of Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.,

by labeling her option in the decision matrix as “non-dogmatic non-theism,” then Jordan can

respond by labeling his favored option as “non-dogmatic theism.” Let us refer to a matrix with

options labeled in this way as the Non-Dogmatic Matrix. In essence, Jordan can claim that the

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Non-Dogmatic Matrix avoids the issue of the social and personal harms of religion, thereby

rebutting the objection of this section. With these social harms out of the way, he can then claim

that the Next Best rule favors non-dogmatic theism on account of its pragmatic benefits.

An appeal to the Non-Dogmatic Matrix has some merit. In any case, moreover, it is a

good thing if the Jamesian wager explicitly endorses only a non-dogmatic sort of religious belief,

thus ensuring that the wager cannot be hijacked by religious fundamentalists. That said, this

response is not without its costs. For at least two reasons, making use of the Non-Dogmatic

Matrix ends up significantly weakening the Jamesian wager’s force. Briefly, the first reason

alleges that even non-dogmatic religious belief “aids and abets” dogmatic religious belief; the

second reason alleges that a shift to non-dogmatic religious belief may sacrifice some of the

health benefits of religious belief that Jordan touts. I will discuss each of these reasons in turn.

A Problem with the Non-Dogmatic Matrix: Legitimizing Non-Evidential Belief

The first reason arises from the fact, we might say, that Jordan recommends “believing

beyond the evidence” (my phrase; by it I mean that he recommends believing in a proposition

that does not enjoy a preponderance of evidence in its favor). It is true that Jordan does not

recommend “believing against the evidence” (as he would if he recommended belief in God

even when the preponderance of evidence leans against this); indeed, he counsels against such

belief (see pp. 47-53). However, the worry still arises that Jordan’s weakening of the link

between evidence and belief will have the problematic effect of “aiding and abetting” dogmatic

religious belief. After all, encouraging belief on the basis of faith—that is, belief beyond the

evidence—can have the effect, whether intended or not, of discouraging critical rational thought

in others. (These others may not bother to distinguish believing beyond the evidence, of which

Jordan approves, from believing against the evidence, of which Jordan disapproves.) This in

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turn, can help to create a faith-friendly cultural milieu in which it is easier for uncritical dogmas

to flourish and gain adherents.

By contrast with non-dogmatic theism, non-dogmatic non-theism, by refusing to believe

in God absent a preponderance of evidence, if anything strengthens rather than weakens the link

between belief and evidence. Thus unlike non-dogmatic theism, non-dogmatic non-theism does

not run the risk of unintentionally bestowing cultural legitimacy on faith-based dogmatic belief.

Hence this potential social harm must be included in the Non-Dogmatic Matrix as a possible

effect of theism rather than non-theism. But in virtue of running a risk that its rival option does

not run, it is no longer the case that theism always yields a better outcome in this world than non-

theism. Hence the Next Best Thing rule no longer applies, and thus can no longer be used to

single out theism as the favored alternative within the Non-Dogmatic Matrix.

Perhaps Jordan might at this point reply with an analogy: “A society such as our own, in

which social drinking of alcohol is culturally legitimate, will probably produce more alcoholics

than a society whose dominant cultural norms disapprove of any use of alcohol. However, we do

not typically blame moderate social drinkers for creating a cultural milieu in which alcoholism

can flourish. Likewise, within the Non-Dogmatic Matrix we should not list as a possible outcome

of moderate theism the social harm of creating a cultural milieu in which dogmatism can

flourish. It is unfair to blame non-dogmatic theism for the irresponsible behavior of dogmatic

theists, just as it would be unfair to blame moderate social drinkers for the irresponsible behavior

of alcohol abusers.”

This analogy is interesting, but two shortcomings render it less than fully persuasive.

First, consider that if hardcore gin aficionados, say, had armies that they sent to war against

hardcore vodka aficionados, or hardcore beer lovers flew planes into the skyscrapers of hardcore

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wine lovers, or hardcore scotch drinkers fielded authoritarian political candidates, and so on, then

we might really have to rethink our moral approval of moderate social drinking. Secondly, to

make use of this analogy by way of defending the Non-Dogmatic Matrix is to import

considerations of responsibility into the Non-Dogmatic Matrix; it is to moralize the matrix and

thereby depart significantly from the consequentialist framework that decision theory employs.

That may be the correct thing to do, but it simply shows how much more work remains to be

done before the Jamesian wager is persuasive.

A Problem with the Non-Dogmatic Matrix: Less dogma, less comfort?

I have a second reason for doubting the strategy of appealing to the Non-Dogmatic

Matrix to avoid the issue of the potential social harms of religion. It is this: even if this strategy

is right that it is chiefly dogmatism that produces the social harms of religious belief, by the same

token it may be that it is dogmatism, alas, that produces many of the health and happiness

benefits of religious belief. Suppose, for instance, that these health and happiness benefits stem

mainly from the comfort and confident hope that religious belief provides. If so, it may in turn be

the case that the more immune to doubt one’s faith is, the more comfort and confident hope one

derives from it, and thus the more pronounced are its health and happiness effects. Of course, if

dogmatic religious belief leads to the types of personal harms mentioned earlier (a disabling fear

of hell, Puritanism, etc.), then these harms may offset the health benefits of comfort and

confident hope; the empirical issues are undoubtedly complicated. The social scientific studies

relied on by Jordan (e.g. Koenig, et al., 2001), however, do not attempt to distinguish between

dogmatic and non-dogmatic belief.

By contrast, some careful social scientific research does try to distinguish these forms of

belief; it finds greater health benefits associated with religious certainty as opposed to more

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open-ended types of religious belief. Important research conducted by C. D. Batson, P. A.

Schoenrade, and W. L. Ventis, for instance, distinguishes a “quest” dimension of religious belief

and an “intrinsic end” dimension, a distinction that approximates the non-dogmatic / dogmatic

distinction employed above. These researchers conclude that

[t]he intrinsic end dimension is positively associated with reports of (1) greater absence

of illness, (2) more appropriate social behavior, (3) greater freedom from worry (but not

guilt), (4) greater personal competence and control, and (5) greater unification and

organization, but not with (6) greater self-acceptance or (7) greater open-mindedness and

flexibility. The quest dimension is positively associated with (1) greater open-

mindedness and flexibility and, possibly, with (2) greater personal competence and

control and (3) greater self-acceptance, but not with (4) greater absence of illness or (5)

greater freedom from worry (Batson et al. 1993, pp. 290-91; emphasis added).

In short, it may well be that in rejecting dogmatism and thereby avoiding the potential social

harms of religious belief one also sacrifices many significant potential health benefits. Absent

strong evidence of significant pragmatic benefits, however, the Jamesian wager surely fails, for

the inculcation process that the wager recommends (assenting to a proposition and using it as a

premise in one’s practical deliberation) is doubtless long, not always easy, and (as I earlier

noted) is arguably at odds with important perfectionist values. It would surely be irrational to

shoulder such a task for very modest and uncertain expected gains.

Conclusion

I believe these two objections—that happiness rooted in false beliefs is worth less than

happiness rooted in reality, and that the potential social harms of religious belief cannot be ignored

—reveal Jordan’s defense of the Jamesian wager to be seriously incomplete at best. If the Jamesian

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wager is indeed a featherbed for falling Pascalians, it has some significant lumps still in need of

smoothing out. Let me be clear, however: I have concluded only that Jordan’s argument in favor of

the moral and rational permissibility of religious belief fails in its current form. This, of course, is

distinct from positively concluding that religious belief is always both morally and prudentially

impermissible, all things considered. I do not claim to have shown this, and I doubt whether it is

even true. I suspect such permissions will depend, in a much more nuanced way than the Jamesian

wager envisions, on a host of contextual features that vary from individual to individual. I leave

the task of exploring such contextual features to another day; let me here simply adduce two

points, one positive and one negative, by way of suggesting what I have in mind. The positive

point is this: if inculcating religious faith represents the best chance of bringing a person back

from the brink of suicide, say, or from a life-ruining addiction, then I would agree that such an

individual has sufficient reason all-told to adopt a religious faith, at least until the dangers have

significantly abated. The negative point asks about the source of the suffering that leads

individuals to seek consolation in religion. Does this suffering stem from injustices prevailing in

the individuals’ society, so that religion is, in Marx’s famous words, “the sigh of the oppressed

creature” (Marx 1977, p. 64)? If so, then even if consoling religious belief should turn out to be

pragmatically justified as a coping mechanism, it is surely only a second-best response; the best

response is for citizens collectively to remove the injustices that are the source of such suffering.

In essence, then, this essay is a plea for complexity: the questions of whether one has

prudential reason to inculcate religious belief in oneself, and how those reasons combine with

other reasons one has (moral and epistemic), are complicated questions. The Jamesian wager is

too simple an answer.

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