This is the recreational philosophy blogentry-du-jour.
Let’s see if I can explain this. “Occam’s Razor” is the “law of succinctness” in philosophy, the dictum that given a simpler and more complex explanation for something, the simpler is better, all other things being equal. So this philosopher named John Holbo, blogging at Crooked Timber, coins “Occam’s Phaser,” in which he suggests, “Do not compound the silliness of your examples beyond necessity.” This is due to one of those trolleological parables which he encountered while reading something by Nozick.
Personally, I agree with some of the commenters, who point out that the humorousness of these philosophical examples and stories is part of the point of them – I would suggest that, in discussing awkward or unexpected ethical or philosophical intuitions, these resorts to humor can help “disarm” us, vis-a-vis our preconceptions. They lower our defenses, thus enabling a more objective self-reflection.
Still, in all, I understand his point. Why suggest an outlandish situation that relies on impossibilities, when realistic examples meeting the same criteria (from a philosophical standpoint) are feasible? Perhaps because the philosophers aren’t as comfortable with their conclusions as they’d like to hope.
And beyond that, I love the name – the label – that he’s given to his new principle of trolleological plausi-parsimony: Occam’s Phaser. Occam, of course, would have a blue shirt – he’d be a science officer, right?
John Holbo, incidentally, is someone who offers change you can really believe in (which is to say, I was delighted by the below image, which is one of his compositions):
