Lets assume for the moment that the probabilities involved are known with certainty. If I understand your original ‘way out’ correctly, then it would apply just as well in this case. You would embrace being irrational and still refuse to give the mugger your wallet. But I think here, the recommendations of expected utility theory in a Pascal’s mugger situation are doing well ‘on their own terms’. This is because expected utility theory doesn’t tell you to maximize the probability of increasing your utility, it tells you to maximize your utility in expectation, and that’s exactly what handing over your wallet to the mugger does. And if enough people repeated it enough times, some of them would eventually find themselves in a rare situation where the mugger’s promises were real.
In reality, the probabilities involved are not known. That’s an added complication which gives you a different way out of having to hand over your wallet, and that’s the way out I’m advocating we take in this post.
Lets assume for the moment that the probabilities involved are known with certainty. If I understand your original ‘way out’ correctly, then it would apply just as well in this case. You would embrace being irrational and still refuse to give the mugger your wallet. But I think here, the recommendations of expected utility theory in a Pascal’s mugger situation are doing well ‘on their own terms’. This is because expected utility theory doesn’t tell you to maximize the probability of increasing your utility, it tells you to maximize your utility in expectation, and that’s exactly what handing over your wallet to the mugger does. And if enough people repeated it enough times, some of them would eventually find themselves in a rare situation where the mugger’s promises were real.
In reality, the probabilities involved are not known. That’s an added complication which gives you a different way out of having to hand over your wallet, and that’s the way out I’m advocating we take in this post.