Also—explaining complex beliefs is a fantastically difficult enterprise. To consider fiction as just a way of “sneaking things past the unwary reader’s guard” is selling it far short. It verges, I fear, on too much respect for respectability.
I tried to make the Superhappy position look as appealing as possible—show just how strange our position would look to someone who didn’t have it, ask whether human children might be innocent victims, depict the human objections as overcomplicated departures from rationality. Of course I wanted my readers to feel Akon’s helplessness. But to call that “sneaking things past someone’s guard” is a little unfair to the possibilities of fiction as a vehicle for philosophy, I should think.
I’m still conflicted and worried about the ethics of writing fiction as a way of persuading people of anything, but conflict implies almost-balance; you don’t seem to think that there’s much in the way of benefit.
Also—explaining complex beliefs is a fantastically difficult enterprise. To consider fiction as just a way of “sneaking things past the unwary reader’s guard” is selling it far short. It verges, I fear, on too much respect for respectability.
I tried to make the Superhappy position look as appealing as possible—show just how strange our position would look to someone who didn’t have it, ask whether human children might be innocent victims, depict the human objections as overcomplicated departures from rationality. Of course I wanted my readers to feel Akon’s helplessness. But to call that “sneaking things past someone’s guard” is a little unfair to the possibilities of fiction as a vehicle for philosophy, I should think.
I’m still conflicted and worried about the ethics of writing fiction as a way of persuading people of anything, but conflict implies almost-balance; you don’t seem to think that there’s much in the way of benefit.