[pure-silver] Sally Mann vs Kant in Houston
- From: Shannon Stoney <sstoney@xxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:32:43 -0500
That depends completely on the pictures. I do like Rawl's, and
you're right that it's on off-shoot of Kant.
My claim is precisely that Sally Mann HAS violated the categorical
imperative, by using her children as means to her own ends;
But that isn't a violation. You *can*, according to Kant, use other
people for your own ends. What Kant forbid was *only* using people
for your own ends. That's a huge difference.
I don't understand why it's ok to sometimes use people for your own
ends, as long as you don't do it all the time. I think that using
people instrumentally, without regard to their own subjectivity, is
always wrong.
Also, I thought that the categorical imperative was that you should
behave yourself the way you would want other people to always behave.
That is, you shouldn't lie if you don't want other people to lie to
you. (I think Kant would say that the CI still works in cases where
people have to lie or steal to get drugs to save a dying person, etc.
He would probably have wanted looters in New Orleans to break into
Walmart to get water and diapers for example.)
Sally Mann does not pose herself in sexually provocative ways. She
has rarely turned the camera onto her own nude body. She also said
that she didn't feel right about photographing her aging, ailing
father, and she has never shown anybody the photographs she has made
of her husband. She implied that she had made sexual photographs of
herself and him together. But she hasn't showed these. Yet she is
willing to do these things to her children. I find this a situation
where a deep consideration of the categorical imperative would be
beneficial intellectually and morally.
and further, that she may have failed to imagine how they might
feel later in life, when they understand fully the meaning of these
photographs, thus violating John Rawls's principles of justice.
As above, that's not so clear. It depends on the photographs. If
they're Jock Sturges like, I don't see a problem.
It sounds as if you have not looked at the Sally Mann photographs.
Maybe if you do, you'll see what I mean.
--shannon
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