What is Pascal's mugging?

Pascal's mugging is a philosophical thought experiment that exposes a severe problem in expected utility maximization. It features a mugger who convinces a rational agent to hand over a wallet by promising an implausibly huge reward that grows faster than its probability diminishes. This leads to counter-intuitive decisions and logical incoherence where every choice becomes unbounded.

What we know

• Pascal's mugging demonstrates a problem in expected utility maximization where rational agents choose actions based on probability-weighted outcomes. [2]
• In the thought experiment, a mugger proposes that in exchange for a wallet, he will give N times the money to compensate for the extremely low probability that he honors the deal. [1]
• Extremely unlikely outcomes can possess such vastly great utilities that these utilities grow faster than the probability diminishes, forcing the agent to focus on improbable cases with high rewards. [2]
• Unlike Pascal's Wager, Pascal's mugging does not require infinite rewards, successfully sidestepping objections based on the nature of infinity. [2]

Where to go next

• compared withHow does Pascal's Wager work?
• whoWho was Blaise Pascal?
• the bigger pictureWhat is expected utility maximization?
• how it workedHow does risk theory evaluate extreme events?
• what followedWhat are decision theory paradoxes?
• an unexpected connectionHow did a philosopher of expected utility invent public transit?Blaise Pascal is not only known for probability and philosophical thought experiments, but he also invented the first modern public transport service shortly before his death.

Sources

• [1]Pascal's mugging (Wikidata Q17747150) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Pascal's mugging · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Pascal's wager · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Blaise Pascal · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Risk · CC BY-SA 4.0