Link to Blog Post: "Extremism in Thought Experiments is No Vice"
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Phil Robertson is being criticized for a thought experiment in which an atheist’s family is raped and murdered. On a talk show, he accused atheists of believing that there was no such thing as objective right or wrong, then continued:
I’ll make a bet with you. Two guys break into an atheist’s home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him.Then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them, and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him, and then they can look at him and say, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged? Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now, is it dude?’
Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if [there] was something wrong with this? But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.’
If it happened to them, they probably would say, ‘Something about this just ain’t right’.
The media has completely proportionally described this as Robinson “fantasizing about” raping atheists, and there are the usual calls for him to apologize/get fired/be beheaded.
So let me use whatever credibility I have as a guy with a philosophy degree to confirm that Phil Robertson is doing moral philosophy exactly right.
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This is a LW discussion post for Yvain's blog posts at Slate Star Codex, as per tog's suggestion:
Like many Less Wrong readers, I greatly enjoy Slate Star Codex; there's a large overlap in readership. However, the comments there are far worse, not worth reading for me. I think this is in part due to the lack of LW-style up and downvotes. Have there ever been discussion threads about SSC posts here on LW? What do people think of the idea occasionally having them? Does Scott himself have any views on this, and would he be OK with it?
Scott/Yvain's permission to repost on LW was granted (from facebook):
I'm fine with anyone who wants reposting things for comments on LW, except for posts where I specifically say otherwise or tag them with "things i will regret writing"
Yes, the Alien God metaphor is a good one, it is very close to the Heideggerian "we are thrown into the world and must cope somehow, cannot really expect elegant solutions" I subscribe to.
I am not at all sure it is a given that people have, just happen to have terminal values. I think you are assuming too much here, perhaps, a very autonomous upbringing where you are expected to form opinions instead of letting your behavior guided by the prevailing opinion without affirming or denying it.
For example some old guy used to go to church and then stopped it because there was some kind of an altercation. At no point he decided whether he is theist or atheist, to him the question felt like taking a position about the many-words interpretation in quantum physics: something far above his "pay grade", he wanted to leave the question to experts, he never had belief and never had unbelief. He did not think he is entitled to either of them. Rather he did the church-going as a social ritual and then stopped it when there were certain social problems. (I don't remember the details, it was something about him being a teetotaller as he disliked drunken fist-fights and somehow the churchiest guys were the drunkiest and then it did not go down well.)
I don't really understand the part about natural numbers.