Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/04/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]
Frank Filippone wrote:
> Should pure ethics be the norm? yes, but it does not and will not.
> Media's
> accepted job is to convey a statement or idea. They do it through
> biased
> reporting. The guy in question conveyed a statement. Ethically, I
> see no
> problem in what he did, other than to break the papers' rules.
Frank, you're going to have to decide which side of the fence you want
to sit on. You cannot argue both for absolute ethics and socially
constructed ethics at the same time. The statement "ethically, I see
no problem in what he did, other than to break the paper's rules" is
flawed.
In a viewpoint of absolute ethics, assuming that the paper's ethics
stem from those absolute ethics ("pure ethics" above), breaking the
rules is a clear violation and ethically unacceptible. End of
discussion.
In a viewpoint of socially constructed ethics, however, you need to
recognize that the whole point of subjective ethics is that they are as
*reified* and *absolute* as objective ethics are, within any given
society. Therefore, breaking the paper's ethics is as damming in this
world as in the "absolute" one.
That's the whole point of social constructivism: that within any given
society, the social rules are as absolute, taken-for-granted, and real
as if they were objectively true.
The paper's rules ARE the ethics, regardless of whether your viewpoint
is socially realist or social constructivist. Violating the paper's
rules IS the ethical problem.
The only way you can get away with that statement is if your viewpoint
is socially constructivist and you consider the photographer to be an
"outsider". Which, after 20 years in the job, I think we can discount
as an analytical possibility.
M.
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html