"The literal interpretation precisely matches Valerie's description."
Her description matches it like "he supports voting rights for men of Aryan race" matches "I support universal suffrage". It's a consequence of the literal interpretation, but not an accurate description of it. An accurate description would be something like "one of his comments could be interpreted to mean that he believes drunk enough people are free of all legal responsibility related to rape". Even if you omit the "could be interpreted" part, this description would still make it a lot more obvious that it's unlikely to be his real view.
"It's exactly as ridiculous to claim that it's not rape purely because both parties were too drunk to realise that neither could grant consent."
I don't think the thought experiment case is ridiculous at all; due to the symmetry the only logical alternatives are that both are rapists of neither is.
Are you again trying to mix this up with other, asymmetric, cases?
Where is he only applying it to a case where both parties are drunk?
Immediately afterward he only applies it to the thought experiment with both drunk. His later questions about the study again mentioned "numbers might be skewed by cases where both parties were drunk". No mention of anything like "numbers might be skewed by cases where the 'rapist' was drunk", even though that would be an obvious consequence. Generally no discussion of the full consequences, even though they would be remarkable.
"He doesn't say it's ok. He just says it's not rape."
I doubt alcohol would make him stop considering it rape from non-legal terminology perspective, and I'd expect him to say something about it if he thought there was a difference in this case.
Re: My overall take on the discussion
Her description matches it like "he supports voting rights for men of Aryan race" matches "I support universal suffrage". It's a consequence of the literal interpretation, but not an accurate description of it. An accurate description would be something like "one of his comments could be interpreted to mean that he believes drunk enough people are free of all legal responsibility related to rape". Even if you omit the "could be interpreted" part, this description would still make it a lot more obvious that it's unlikely to be his real view.
"It's exactly as ridiculous to claim that it's not rape purely because both parties were too drunk to realise that neither could grant consent."
I don't think the thought experiment case is ridiculous at all; due to the symmetry the only logical alternatives are that both are rapists of neither is.
Are you again trying to mix this up with other, asymmetric, cases?
Where is he only applying it to a case where both parties are drunk?
Immediately afterward he only applies it to the thought experiment with both drunk. His later questions about the study again mentioned "numbers might be skewed by cases where both parties were drunk". No mention of anything like "numbers might be skewed by cases where the 'rapist' was drunk", even though that would be an obvious consequence. Generally no discussion of the full consequences, even though they would be remarkable.
"He doesn't say it's ok. He just says it's not rape."
I doubt alcohol would make him stop considering it rape from non-legal terminology perspective, and I'd expect him to say something about it if he thought there was a difference in this case.