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Moral equivalents?

Lateralus

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It is my opinion that global warming promoters showing me pictures of dead or suffering animals is just as objectionable as pro-lifers showing me pictures of aborted fetuses. Are these moral equivalents? Or am I missing something?
 

Coriolis

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I don't know if I would call them moral equivalents, but they are equivalent in attempting to evoke an emotional response, rather than the mature, objective discussion that should take place about either topic.
 

Nicodemus

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It is my opinion that global warming promoters showing me pictures of dead or suffering animals is just as objectionable as pro-lifers showing me pictures of aborted fetuses. Are these moral equivalents? Or am I missing something?
If they try to promote global warming by showing pictures of dead animals, they have a poor understanding of human psychology.
 

Beargryllz

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It sounds like they want to evoke a specific response, one that will only be found in certain listeners. Just consider it an advertisement targeted at someone that isn't you, and move on. If it doesn't impact you, make note of it and continue. Or dwell on it, you might discover something. Just do whatever you want.
 

auriel

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Even though I am horrified by the current mass extinction (one of only seven in the few billion years life has existed on this planet, and the fault of ours truly), I consider this type of advertising manipulative and resist it whenever I see it. Arguments from emotion are not bad; however, there must be some statistics presented, causation highlighted, and clear presentation, not just pictures of drowning polar bears and weepy music.

However, I do think it is different from the manipulative anti-abortion advertisements, albeit for a very different reason. See, there are debates as to whether a fetus is a person with rights (such as the right to life). Doesn't matter whether you think they are persons or not, there is still a debate on, and a sensible one in my opinion (even though I am not anti-abortion) as they do belong to the same species and have the potential to grow up to be just like you or me. Animals don't have any rights in the legal sense of the word; though cruelty should be looked down on, the right to life cannot really be given to animals, because it would result in the extinction of thousands of carnivorous species (who themselves would have the right to life). On the other hand, the mass extinction is a different cup of tea, because it is threatening the balance of all life. The scale is infinitely greater than the abortion of human fetuses.

You're comparing macro to micro, human (legal) to non-human. It can't really be done.
 
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Oberon

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It is my opinion that global warming promoters showing me pictures of dead or suffering animals is just as objectionable as pro-lifers showing me pictures of aborted fetuses. Are these moral equivalents? Or am I missing something?

Hmmm... in your opinion, does either of these examples equate to using photos of stacked bodies from the death camps to oppose Nazism?

Is that practice ethical? And if there is a range of values of moral legitimacy, where does this third example fall?
 

Lateralus

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Hmmm... in your opinion, does either of these examples equate to using photos of stacked bodies from the death camps to oppose Nazism?

Is that practice ethical? And if there is a range of values of moral legitimacy, where does this third example fall?
My personal belief is that emotional manipulation is unethical, but I know it won't end because so many people are susceptible to it.

You make an interesting point about Holocaust victims. Perhaps I view my examples differently because they are advocating for a particular political position whereas I have never run into anyone trying to advocate for a political position using photos of Holocaust victims. I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it.
 

Randomnity

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Hmmm... in your opinion, does either of these examples equate to using photos of stacked bodies from the death camps to oppose Nazism?

Is that practice ethical? And if there is a range of values of moral legitimacy, where does this third example fall?
Very interesting question!

I think there are some obvious similarities (playing on emotion, shock factor, etc), but also some differences that may or may not be relevant to different people. One difference I can think of off-hand is that depicting dead human beings is not the same as depicting dead fetuses or animals (of course, you may feel that fetuses and/or animals deserve the same rights to live, but they are still depicting different things). Some people may not agree that the difference is morally relevant, of course.

However, it's clear that killing human beings is certainly more-commonly abhorred compared to fetuses and animals (not to say that a majority makes things objectively "moral", but it's another difference). So it's very likely that people seeing the photo of dead people are against murder, whereas the average person seeing dead animals or fetuses isn't necessarily against abortion or whatever the dead animals are symbolizing. The "shock value" of the photos in the latter cases is to attempt to persuade people to change their stance, whereas in the case of the death camps, it seemed more of a "look what's happening! we have to do something" rather than an attempt to show how bad murder is. Maybe?
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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My personal belief is that emotional manipulation is unethical, but I know it won't end because so many people are susceptible to it.

You make an interesting point about Holocaust victims. Perhaps I view my examples differently because they are advocating for a particular political position whereas I have never run into anyone trying to advocate for a political position using photos of Holocaust victims. I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it.

Each of us is most susceptible to the propaganda that we want to believe in. The Holocaust pictures don't seem manipulative because they agree with the view that you already have. The pro-life or global warming pictures are presenting a message that you don't particularly agree with, so it seems manipulative.

Effective propaganda doesn't change a person's mind. It either reinforces an established view, or it gives a person an opinion before they formed their own.
 
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Oberon

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On balance, I'm not certain that it's right to shortchange the validity of content that engenders emotion. I'm not certain that an emotional response should be assumed to be any less valid than an intellectual response. Although intellect is the arena in which I almost always operate, I have come to distrust unalloyed intellect as a guiding principle.

On that basis, I say that as long as the content presented in the images is factual, i.e. it correctly and truly represents what it's claimed to represent, then it's fair game.
 

Lateralus

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Each of us is most susceptible to the propaganda that we want to believe in. The Holocaust pictures don't seem manipulative because they agree with the view that you already have. The pro-life or global warming pictures are presenting a message that you don't particularly agree with, so it seems manipulative.
No, I don't think that's it. It's because they're playing on emotions. I hate it when people "on my side" use manipulation, as well.

Effective propaganda doesn't change a person's mind. It either reinforces an established view, or it gives a person an opinion before they formed their own.
I'm not sure I agree with this. I think it could have a long term effect that's more difficult to measure.
 

Lateralus

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On balance, I'm not certain that it's right to shortchange the validity of content that engenders emotion. I'm not certain that an emotional response should be assumed to be any less valid than an intellectual response. Although intellect is the arena in which I almost always operate, I have come to distrust unalloyed intellect as a guiding principle.

On that basis, I say that as long as the content presented in the images is factual, i.e. it correctly and truly represents what it's claimed to represent, then it's fair game.
The problem for me is that emotional manipulation seems to always have an element of dishonesty to it.
 

Lark

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It is my opinion that global warming promoters showing me pictures of dead or suffering animals is just as objectionable as pro-lifers showing me pictures of aborted fetuses. Are these moral equivalents? Or am I missing something?

I dont think so, personally I rate human life more highly than animal life but I think that they are both reprehensible shock tactics.
 
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Oberon

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I don't understand your point.

What I mean is, if you are aware that an image and message have been calculated to manipulate you emotionally, does that not render you immune to the manipulation? Having seen the trap laid for you, don't you thereby avoid falling prey to it?
 

Lateralus

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What I mean is, if you are aware that an image and message have been calculated to manipulate you emotionally, does that not render you immune to the manipulation? Having seen the trap laid for you, don't you thereby avoid falling prey to it?
It still has an effect on others. It also tends to make discussion of the related issue more hyperbolic.
 
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Oberon

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It still has an effect on others. It also tends to make discussion of the related issue more hyperbolic.

Either that, or you are dismissing the validity of the emotional component of the message out of hand. How can you be certain that the emotional content is invalid?
 

Totenkindly

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I don't know if I would call them moral equivalents, but they are equivalent in attempting to evoke an emotional response, rather than the mature, objective discussion that should take place about either topic.

While as a rationalist, I generally agree with this, I have to acknowledge that in some cases rational analysis can become too divorced from the actual, real, human, emotional impact of a particular decision.

It might seem rational to downsize a company, but not after you actually hang out with your former employees at the food kitchens with their starving kids. War might seem justified, until you see some of the disabled soldiers and dead bodies (and/or pieces of bodies, and/or orphaned/wounded children] of civilians.

Even with abortion and how the profileration of public pictures of remains can often be used as a club, one still has to put a fetus in physical context rather than just abstracting a scenario out of it; women who get abortions often have emotional issues afterward due to the invasiveness of the procedure as well the tangible loss of what they still might perceive as a child, and abstracting it to just an ethical question sometimes forgets that.
 

Lateralus

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Either that, or you are dismissing the validity of the emotional component of the message out of hand. How can you be certain that the emotional content is invalid?
In my experience, emotional messages lead to people screaming at each other rather than to people reaching greater understanding (assuming people with opposing view points are involved). This doesn't seem useful to me.
 
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