The Paradox of The Poison Chalice
I listened to a great podcast with Peter Cave recently that dealt with philosophical paradoxes. A paradox, for those who don’t know, is a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd, but in reality expresses a possible truth.
One example that they used in the cast caught my attention. It is called the Paradox of The Poison Chalice, and it explores the limits of reason. Here it is:
An eccentric billionaire places before you a vial of toxin that, if you drink it, will make you painfully ill for a day, but will not threaten your life or have any lasting effects. The billionaire will pay you one million dollars tomorrow morning if, at midnight tonight, you intend to drink the toxin tomorrow afternoon. He emphasizes that you need not drink the toxin to receive the money; in fact, the money will already be in your bank account hours before the time for drinking it arrives, if you succeed. All you have to do is. . . intend at midnight tonight to drink the stuff tomorrow afternoon. You are perfectly free to change your mind after receiving the money and not drink the toxin.
The most obvious interpretation of this paradox is simply: Can you honestly intend to drink the toxin if you know you don’t have to?
This puzzle shows us a great truth. It is that in order to have a genuine intention, one must also have the desire to fulfill that intention or it wouldn’t conceptually be an intention at all.
In the case of this puzzle, reason fails us. The more we think about this problem, the further away from the One million dollars we get. As pointed out in the cast, someone who is not a philosopher or does not have a tendency to reflect on matters, could quite possibly win the money because they would have every intention to drink the toxin and would actually drink the liquid and suffer the side effects.
Rationality, as it turns out, is actually the problem in this puzzle. In order to win the money, you need to be irrational! How great is that?!?
Painting above by Sebastian Vallejo
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