[pure-silver] Re: Sally Mann lecture in Houston
- From: Peter De Smidt <pdesmidt@xxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:39:00 -0700
Shannon Stoney wrote:
If your whole identity is your appearance, you are not being loved for
who you are, for the content of your character as MLK said, but for
your curly golden hair and slim nubile body. This is bad and demeaning.
That's a big "if". What should having widespread photographs of yourself
entail that your whole identity is your appearance? You're appearance at
various times, of course, is /part/ of your identity. That's why
photographs do tell us about ourselves, and it's a good thing, too.
Well, usually. What was I thinking when I got that haircut back in 6th
grade? You're objectifying these girls by claiming that the pictures in
question represent their whole identity. The whole 'objectifying' type
of thought goes back to Kant's Categorical Imperative, what he thought
was the highest principle of morality. It consists of the claim that we
should never treat a person /only/ as a means to our own ends. There's
no reason to think that Sally Mann has violated this principle with her
photographs. But you're deflating these girls' identity to objects (the
photographs), and you're imposing your outrage onto them. These/ are/
violations of the CI. But that's ok. Kant, for example, thought that
lying was always wrong, as he held that it violates the CI. But that's
not true. In some rare cases it's morally required that we lie. If
that's true, and if the CI entails that we should never lie, then the CI
is not the highest principle of morality.
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