The Anti-Nihilist Wager Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2019 The Author dialectica 2019 Editorial Board of dialectica Nihilists believe that nothing matters. This article discusses a pragmatic argument against nihilism proposed by Guy Kahane: If nothing matters it does not matter whether you believe that nothing matters, but if you falsely believe that nothing matters when some things actually do, then the consequences will be bad for you because you will fail to pay attention to things you should be paying attention to. If some things really do matter, then believing that some things matter will lead to a better outcome, because you will be paying attention to things you should be paying attention to. Therefore, it is rational to believe that some things matter even if the probability that this hypothesis is true is close to zero. I argue that this pragmatic argument against nihilism is unconvincing because it is vulnerable to the many-gods objection to traditional versions of Pascal's wager.

published proceedings

  • DIALECTICA

author list (cited authors)

  • Peterson, M.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Peterson, Martin

publication date

  • December 2018