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Well, upon my return to w*rk there's thirty-plus more posts on this thread, and I'm writing within the time restrictions dictated by having, well, a week-and-a-bit's worth of w*rk hanging over my head, so forgive me if I fail to address anything that was directed at me...
Also, this dichotomy between images that inform, because they demonstrate harm, and those that merely disgust, is not one I can accept as unproblematic. Regarding gay sex, for example, an illiberal religious position might well regard there to be spiritual harm involved. For an anti-globalisation protestor, harm might be present in bare imperialism. A parent might see harm being done to their child when they view violent cartoons.
I don't see any obvious general rules to apply, and cries of "foul" could equally be raised in the use of text and the exclusion of images.
Well, yes, of course they could; as I've said, I'm not at all arguing images vs text... however, I suppose it is fair to say that I'm arguing "emotive reaction" vs "informed opinion". Most images/text/whatever put forward as part of an argument probably hold both some amount of information and some amount of "playing on emotional reactions" or whatever you'd like to call it. In the case above of images of gay sex, for example, they'd be fairly likely to evoke an "ick" response in a lot of people, because a lot of people can't help but find images of gay sex unpleasant to view in the same way as they might find someone being cut open for surgery unpleasant to view; and yes, they'd also include information such as "this act involves [for example] a man putting a certain part of his inside another man's bottom", which indeed some religious types may consider to be spiritual harm. The latter, I'd argue, has every right to influence moral opinion, if one sees harm in it; the former, however, I would argue does not.
Now, I don't think it's unfair to argue that some images and text, even if it's contentious which, contain no information about their subject whatsoever; a sound project involving nothing but horrendous feedback (which certainly isn't to say that art can't be informative, but I think that's probably an example in which, if that is art, it isn't) and entitled "abortion" probably doesn't actually tell anyone anything about its subject, but might have people leaving with quite a nasty feeling which just might influence their moral judgement. Is there any justification for basing one's moral opinion on things which are simply sensational, in the sense of arousing emotion without increasing understanding (Haus)?
Basically, images of abortion question the morality of... abortion.
Why do they do that ? I would argue that you are focusing on a act rather than the important ethical and moral issue. Philosophically and politically one identifies the important issue and then work through to the secondary ones. In this case, rather amusingly, we are obviously in disagreement about what is important.
Not really; I personally hold a pregnant woman's freedom to choose (as well as, as is the case in some cases, her right to be protected from certain dangers to her personal well-being, and considerations of the life afforded to both unwanted baby and its mother) to be more important than the right to life of an unborn foetus. Thus the fact that I support the option of abortion.
What I am doing, however, is stating, as others have done, that it's not exactly your place to dictate to others what the deciding factor in the morality of abortion debate is, and say that therefore any other issues they may have about the matter are irrelevant.
Nobody (apart from a few religious fascists) - suggests that an abortion under all circumstances is morally wrong.
Ahahaha - ha ha - oh. Well, it would be funny if the actual case weren't so horrible. M'dear, there are people out there compiling lists of doctors who perform abortions so that faithful followers can murder them and, while the people who're actually prepared to go out and shoot doctors probably are just "a few religious fascists", they aren't exactly short of support.
Utilitarianism breaks down because it is incalculable. One cannot know all the consequences of one's actions.
I don't think that not being able to know all the consequences of one's actions should mean that one shouldn't basically go by the consequences one can predict with reasonable accuracy, perhaps taking into account the possibility that there may be further ramifications. For example, extending sympathy to someone in pain could, by some incredibly complex and unpredictable chain of events, lead to World War 3, but I doubt you'd argue that that should really be taken into account before doing so.
So morality is by necessity individual and context-dependent. It is much more like a human quality such as courage or intelligence than it is a set of rules or a theory.
Of course it's individual and context dependent... but how does that prevent it from being a guiding set of principles, even if they're different for each person? "If these are all the circumstances, then I would do this," or something along those lines.
Further to that, and this is something that is more of a gut belief than anything else, I don't think morality is something that happens in your head, it's something that happens in your behaviour. To know something is wrong is not enough, it's how you act on that knowledge that determines your morality.
... But not one's moral opinions/beliefs, surely? The morality of one's actions are practical, but aren't one's moral beliefs, by definition, theoretical?
So, basically, you're suggesting that we shouldn't take into account our own emotional response to a visual because it has nothing to do with us, right? Our personal emotions in response to images are not relevant to making personal moral choices?
Pretty much, yes. If a moral opinion is based only on a response to spectacle, then I'd say that it's pretty worthless. If someone were to juxtapose the word "abortion" with images of pretty fireworks or something, and one's positive emotional reaction to the prettiness/spectacle made one consider the option of abortion more positively, I can't really think one's change in position is particularly justified. Likewise, if it were juxtaposed with images of Hiroshima victims and made one think negatively of it because of that... no, I can't really say there's anything of worth behind one's position.
Basically, images of abortion question the morality of... abortion.
i.e. the morality of killing humans. Whether someone experiences pain or not while they are dying might be seen as irrelevant to that position, wouldn't you say?
I find it hard to believe that a couple of paragraphs after telling sdv that [w]e don't get to decide what the ethical issue is, you'd then argue a position which takes into consideration only one issue, disregarding all others. However, even starting with the assumption that abortion = killing humans, I don't think whether or not someone experiences pain is irrelevant to that. I'm sure that most people would say that under most circumstances, killing people is wrong. But they'd also say that killing people in a torturous way is worse. And, if it's unnecessarily torturous, worse still.
... Now, w*rk. Hopefully more to come at some point (soon?)... |
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