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Pascal's Mugging

In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization.

Version
v1 · 2026-09-28 · History
Domain-specific #
11220
Domain group
Humanities
Origin domain
Philosophy
Subdomains
Decision Theory, Thought Experiments → Philosophy

Core Idea

Pascal's Mugging is treated here as the recurring mathematics, logic, and statistics identity summarized by this source-grounded definition: In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization. In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization. A rational agent should choose actions whose outcomes, when weighted by their probability, have higher utility. But some very unlikely outcomes may have very great utilities, and these utilities can grow faster than the probability diminishes.

Scope of Application

  • Consequences and remedies. One advocated remedy might be to only use bounded utility functions: rewards cannot be arbitrarily large.

  • Problem statement. The term "Pascal's mugging" to refer to this problem was originally coined by Eliezer Yudkowsky in the LessWrong forum.

  • Problem statement. Philosopher Nick Bostrom later elaborated the thought experiment in the form of a fictional dialogue.

  • Problem statement. Subsequently, other authors published their own sequels to the events of this first dialogue, adopting the same literary style.

  • Problem statement. In Bostrom's description, Blaise Pascal is accosted by a mugger who has forgotten their weapon.

Clarity

A clear use of Pascal's Mugging names the carrier, the operative relation, and the conditions under which the source treats the identity as present. The minimal definition is In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization. The strongest recognition evidence in the frozen account is: In one of Yudkowsky's examples, the mugger succeeds by saying "give me five dollars, or I'll use my.

Manages Complexity

Pascal's Mugging compresses multiple mathematics, logic, and statistics details into a stable diagnostic relation. The source shows both the central mechanism—in Bostrom's description, Blaise Pascal is accosted by a mugger who has forgotten their weapon.—and the practical consequence—convinced by the argument, Pascal gives the mugger the wallet. This compression makes cases comparable while leaving parameters, conventions, exceptions, and evidential quality explicit.

Abstract Reasoning

  1. Type the carrier. Identify the mathematics, logic, and statistics entities to which the claim applies.
  2. State the relation. Use the source-grounded identity: In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization.
  3. Check operation and conditions. In one example, the mugger succeeds by promising Pascal 1,000 quadrillion happy days of life.
  4. Demand recognition evidence.

Knowledge Transfer

Within the home domain. Knowledge about Pascal's Mugging transfers literally when a new case preserves the same carrier type, relation, and recognition test. One advocated remedy might be to only use bounded utility functions: rewards cannot be arbitrarily large. The term "Pascal's mugging" to refer to this problem was originally coined by Eliezer Yudkowsky in the LessWrong forum. Beyond the home domain. No canonical parent is asserted for Pascal's Mugging. An outside case receives the specialist name only when the same typed roles and rejection conditions can be filled literally; otherwise the comparison remains an analogy pending later graph densification.

Relationships to Other Abstractions

Local relationship map for Pascal's MuggingParents appear above the current abstraction, mutual partners to the right, and children below. Node labels state whether each abstraction is prime or domain-specific; colors identify relation types.Pascal's MuggingDOMAINPrime abstraction: Thought Experiment — is a kind ofThoughtExperimentPRIME

Current abstraction Pascal's Mugging Domain-specific

Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on

  • Pascal's Mugging is a kind of Thought Experiment Prime

    Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment exposing a problem in expected-utility maximization.

Hierarchy paths (2) — routes to 2 parentless roots

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

Pascal's Mugging sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (69th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.

Family — Narrative Devices & Literary Forms (15 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-08