
A deviant art rendition (Ѻ) of the three brothers Karamazov, the middle brother Ivan Karamazov, a rationalist leaning towards atheism, who is concerned with the suffering he sees in the world, being the one who expresses the "if no god, all is permissible" conjecture.

A deviant art rendition (Ѻ) of the three brothers Karamazov, the middle brother Ivan Karamazov, a rationalist leaning towards atheism, who is concerned with the suffering he sees in the world, being the one who expresses the "if no god, all is permissible" conjecture.

In philosophy, Dostoyevsky dilemma, Karamazov conjecture, Dahmer experiment, or killing spree paradox, among other names, refers generally to the question of why, in a universe without god, meaning, according to logic of a certain type deduction, morals do not exist, and or have no substructure, it is wrong for a person to kill?

Overview
In 1880, Russian realism philosopher Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in his The Brothers Karamazov, had the character Ivan Karamazov, an atheism-leaning rationalist, express the following supposed position:

“If god does not exist, every thing is possible.”

God, in other words, according to Ivan's proposed viewpoint, if he exists, is the lynchpin holding the universe together, dictating moral code, according to which so-deemed impermissible “wrong” actions are barred from occurring, in large part, owing to hypothetical punishment in the afterlife, either in averse resurrection (e.g. eternally burned in fire) and or averse reincarnation scenarios (e.g. reborn as a pig).

The "everything is permissible" assertion, for many, tends to equate to the logic that “no god = no immorality”, which translates to the belief that in a godless world there is no virtue, or something along these lines. (Ѻ)

In 2013, Canadian philosopher Jordan Peterson — a 2017 existence state agnostic (Ѻ), and Sam Harris utopian morality critiquer (Ѻ), who Harris “frustratingly” (Ѻ) podcasted with, and talks about the “problem of atheism” (Ѻ), in respect to Harris and Richard Dawkins, who ranked Trump’s IQ as less than 160 (Ѻ) — discussed, in lecture (Ѻ), Dostoyevsky’s “why don’t I just kill her?” ruminations, in pro and con details.

Dahmer
In 1976, American Jeffrey Dahmer, then aged 16, had the following Karamazov-like atheism ideology ruminating in his mind, as he told his father Lionel Dahmer, a chemist by trade:

“If it all happens naturalistically? What’s the need for god? Can’t I set my own rules? Who owns me? I own myself!”
— Jeffrey Dahmer (c.1993), variant of atheism belief he tried (see: killing spree paradox); as told to his father (Ѻ)

“If a person doesn’t think there is a god to be accountable to, then — then what's the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing ...”
— Jeffrey Dahmer (1994), interview (Ѻ) with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov 29

and was fantasizing about rendering a male jogger unconscious and performing sexual acts on his unconscious body.

Two years later, in 1978, Dahmer began testing out the Karamazov conjecture, in actuality, and over the next 13 years committed the so-defined immoral acts of: rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, cannibalism, torture and murder of seventeen men and boys.

In 1991, Dahmer, 13 years after he began engaging in extreme immoral activity, was eventually caught, sentenced to imprisonment, and three years later, beaten to death by a fellow inmate.

Other
In 2013, American theological philosopher Joseph Milburn, in his talk “If God Does Not Exist (For All We Know): Everything is Permitted”, part of the "Must Morality Be Grounded in God?" Conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville, digressed on the Karamazov conjecture, in the context of new atheism.


A 2016 Atheism Reviews video comment (Ѻ), in reaction to the Francis Crick 1966 “we should abandon the world alive” suggestion, similar thematically to the Karamazov conjecture; which is also found in the David Bossens 2013 jump from abioism to the killing spree paradox. [5]

A 2016 Atheism Reviews video comment (Ѻ), in reaction to the Francis Crick 1966 “we should abandon the world alive” suggestion, similar thematically to the Karamazov conjecture; which is also found in the David Bossens 2013 jump from abioism to the killing spree paradox. [5]

Abioism

See also: Killing spree paradox

A newer variant of Karamazov conjecture, is seen as a repercussion of the human molecular and or abioism positions; the following 2013 view expressed by David Bossens, who jumps from abioism to the killing spree paradox, is one example: [5]

“The morality Libb would propose, is never explicitly proposed. Rather, Libb, each time after he says ‘life does not exist’, goes on to claim that this should have something to do with morality. To me the most obvious moral principle that would follow from ‘life does not exist’ is that ‘it really doesn’t matter whether we would kill somebody’, since life does not exist. Clearly, such reasoning is highly immoral and I hope that Libb does not propose this?” (pg. 97) .... Can Libb be a serial killer if it doesn’t really matter since: one, life does not exist, so you cannot remove it, and two if the negativeness of dG tells me that killing many people is OK, then I must do so.” (pg. 104)

— David Bossens (2013), Debates of the Hmolpedians

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Euthyphro dilemma
In 375BC, Plato, in his dialogue Euthyphro, touched on the roots of the solution, to the Dostoyevsky dilemma, when he has the character Socrates ask the character Euthyphro the following approximate statement: [3]

“Is what is moral or pious ‘good’ because it is commanded by god or is what is moral or pious ‘good’ in and of itself, independent of god?”

Is morality, in other words, written into the laws of nature, according to which god is but a scribe, dictating certain commandments to various prophets of history, or is what is moral in nature based on decrees from god?

The first to answer the Euthyphro dilemma, correctly, was Goethe who in 1809 stated that the moral symbols of nature are found in the equations, reactions, laws, and logic of physical chemistry, a field in which god was disabused in the 19th century, from physical position in 1802 by Pierre Laplace and disabused from the chemical position in 1885 by Johannes Wislicenus.

Existentialism
In 1945, Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that the Dostoyevsky dilemma is the starting point of existentialism. [2]

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“Try atheism, and do whatever the hell you want.”
— Banjo Bastion (2019), “Ad Pitch to Convince Christians to become Atheists” (Ѻ), Oct 9

References
1. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. (1880). The Brothers Karamazov (Part 4, Book 11, Chap 4) (Ѻ). The Russian Messenger.
2. Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1945). “Existentialism is a Humanism” (pgs. 28-29), Lecture at Club Maintenant, Oct 29, Yale University Press, 2007.
3. Euthyphro dilemma – Wikipedia.
4. (a) Milburn, Joseph. (2013). “If God Does Not Exist (For All We Know): Everything is Permitted” (Ѻ), part of the "Must Morality Be Grounded in God?" Conference (Ѻ) at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Apr 5-6.
(b) Joseph Milburn (faculty) – University of Pittsburgh.
5. Bossens, David. (2013). Debates of the Hmolpedians (Amz) (Ѻ) (§Morality, pgs. 103-04). Lulu.