NB I am not claiming that ISIS own the art or architecture they destroy! But what this does show is that the American people, speaking through the duly appointed representative of their democratically elected government believe, as I do, that the people’s of the world have a real and significant interest in the preservation of cultural heritage, including art, and that the destruction of this heritage can be morally compared to theft. And that provides a moral justification for government action.
The fact that they didn’t own what they were destroying is a huge difference! I have absolutely no doubt that if they were destroying works they owned, Kerry’s words would have been quite different.
And even if not, you made a huge leap here. I assume you don’t think that the American people are fine with keeping official State Department mail on home computers just because Secretary of State Clinton did. Or do you?
At best, we know that at the time, the American people didn’t care enough about the issue to make it illegal, but indifference does not transform itself into approbation whenever it would be rhetorically convenient.
What do you think Kerry would have said if ISIS had owned the works? Which of the bolded statements would have been rephrased?
Re. The email thing: I’m not claiming that every action of a Sec of State has the imprimatur of the people. Just that when they make an official speech in their role as Sec of State they are representing their country, and that their words reflect their country’s official position. Particularly when, in the course of their speech, they pledge their government to action. Is that not how it works in the US? Is that not exactly how it was with regard to this specific speech?
ISIL’s destruction of their artworks shows a lack of respect for own common, shared culture as humans. By destroying these priceless works of art, they show their contempt for the highest expressions of man. Of course, the material is theirs, and our respect for the rights of people to own property is paramount. But we call upon ISIL to rise above what they CAN do as owners of property and respect what they SHOULD do as humans.
Sadly, we have no great confidence that ISIL will heed this call, because their indifference towards the human spirit is evinced in a more horrible and deadly way: ISIL is beheading individuals. ISIL’s willingness to slaughter innocents shows they have no respect for religion, no respect for life, and no respect for human spirit. They don’t hide their slaughter of people or their contempt of culture: they broadcast these, purposefully and with pride, for all the world to see their act of depravity and for all of us to be intimidated and to perhaps back off from our values. For the proud people of Iraq and Syria – ancient civilizations, civilizations of great beauty, great accomplishment, of extraordinary history and intellectual achievement – the destruction of their heritage is a purposeful final insult, and another example of ISIL’s implacable evil. ISIL is stealing the souls of millions, yes, but far more importantly they are stealing lives.
So what is really at stake here? When you walk around the exhibit and you see the limestone reliefs from Assyria or the Syro-Hittite sculptures, you get up close and personal reminders of the power of human creation. Each artifact tells a story – a human story, our story. But we also know this: When ISIL destroys dozens of shrines in Mosul or the historic lion statues in Raqqa, when Assad’s forces shell the Roman Temple of Bel in Palmyra or care more about regaining territory in Aleppo than protecting its ancient treasures, we are all bearing witness to cultural barbarism at its worst – ugly, savage, inexplicable, valueless barbarism. It’s not just that the forces of extremism threaten to take us back to the Stone Age. Extremists want to rob future generations of any connection to this past. But do not mistake our care and concern for stone objects as overriding our concern for the human lives lost at the hands of this rampaging barbarism. If you leave it unstopped, if you don’t stand up, we are all complicit…
And that is why the cause of conscience and conviction in our cause for action in Iraq and Syria today is so important.
One who would buy a work of art just to destroy it is mentally ill, and it should not take a few dozen razor cuts on the Mona Lisa’s face to easily line up all the medical opinion needed to support that diagnosis. It is commonly known that the mentally ill may be legally restrained from physically injuring themselves, and I would think legal restraint from self-inflicted property damage would also be available. Hopefully few judges would hesitate to issue a court order prohibiting the pathological behavior so fervently defended in OP.
Furthermore, the pathological behavior threadstarter “boldly claimed” to be an ethical right in fact belongs in the same general category of clinical depravity as buying puppies for sale through the classified ads, only to kill them (humanely, of course). Would threadstarter consider the right to free political advertising enough to justify killing puppies? It would seem so, and he can probably treat us to any number of legalistic gyrations and pirouettes making almost plausible the transformation of the slaughter of puppies into an act of legal and moral nobility. Hopefully few judges would be taken in by threadstarter’s posturing, and would not hesitate to issue a court order prohibiting the pathological behavior suggested by OP.
Also, might there not be an implied duty of buyer to seller on the part of our new puppy owner to do what he can to promote the health of his pets? A duty which litigation might be able to force him to perform? And might there not be a similar duty, similarly enforceable, on the part of an art purchaser to maintain his new property in the best possible condition? If so, then the former owners can team up with the DA versus any psycho asshole who shows up on the radar threatening to kill puppies and slash the Mona Lisa’s face. Between them they could probably keep him in court long enough for the legislature to pass legislation enabling seizure of the endangered property, and long enough to for the medical profession to issue an opinion in favor of getting him committed.
And of course you can back up this statement with some sort of citation to authority, right? I mean, surely you wouldn’t enter a debate by simply asserting your uncited opinion.
I certainly make room for the possibility that a mentally ill person might seek to destroy his valuable painting for reasons of mental defect. But I don’t agree that any such person seeking to destroy art is automatically, or per se mentally ill. For that, I’m going to need some sort of citation, perhaps to the DSM-IV?
People buy live mice to use as food for their pet snakes. I’m not aware of the argument that lets this behavior pass without rancor (or at least pass without legal sanction) but would criminalize humanely killing puppies, an act that happens every day in animal shelters across the country.
I certainly wouldn’t applaud the wholesale killing of puppies, but I wouldn’t argue it should be prohibited. We sanction the wholesale killing of cattle, lambs, goats, chickens, turkeys, lobsters, crabs, rabbits, elk, deer, and other mammals. What ethical principles should exempt puppies from this?
You appear to be very confused.
Put simply: nowhere in this thread, or anywhere else, have I suggested that destroying artwork or killing puppies is noble. That’s your invention.
Secondly, once again the process of debate seems to have eluded you. On what basis do you imagine these judges might act? Judges are not kings – they interpret the law, as opposed to simply creating it. What law would these judges use in service of your vision, specifically?
No. There might not. In fact, there is not. That is absolutely groundless speculation. It is false. There is no such duty.
“If so…”
Unfortunately, it’s not so, a fact that appears to negate the fanciful speculation in which you engage in this paragraph.
This is debate. It involves facts. Citations. In your entire post, there is not one citation to authority for any of the claims you’ve made. And the reason is evident.
Before I go into your parallel universe Kerry speech, can I clarify the status of the one he made in this reality:
When the British Foreign Secretary makes an official speech outlining government policy and the reasons behind it, he’s speaking on behalf of the government and the position he takes is the position of the government. I’m assuming the same applies to the US Secretary of State. If it doesn’t generally apply, or if this speech is somehow an exception to the usual rule, it would be interesting to know why.
Now on to this:
[1] Well, that’s the question right enough! My version would be different…
[2], [3] It’s good to see that Parallel Universe Kerry is not so far removed from the original that he disagrees on the fundamental point: destruction of cultural heritage is morally equivalent to theft.
[4] I agree that ISIS’s campaign of terror and murder is reason in itself for military action against them. Were I writing the original speech, I would have gone for “ISIL is stealing lives, yes, and it’s also stealing the soul of millions” rather than risk the suggestion that the latter overshadowed the former.
OK, my version would be largely similar to yours, but the first paragraph might read a little differently:
More stuff of interest! Someone wrote a book on this: Playing Darts With A Rembrandt, by Graham L Sax.
As you probably know, but I have only just learnt, Winston Churchill figures in a controversy about the right to destroy art. In 1954 a portrait of Churchill was commissioned by the Houses of Parliament and presented to him as a gift. The portrait was by Graham Sutherland, a modern artist with an unhappy knack for showing people those aspects of themselves they didn’t want to see. Churchill and his wife hated the portrait, and almost refused to accept it. But accept it they did. Years later, it emerged that Clem had destroyed the painting some months after receiving it. This caused quite a controversy at the time. In Playing Darts… Sax quotes not only from various art-world types - who were generally, but not universally, in agreement that a line had been crossed - but also from a Sunday Times vox pops exercise. His analysis of the article is that most people felt that the owners had no right to destroy art. (p42 on the Google Books link above).
It would be good to see the original ST article of course. But I think we can take this as some evidence that, in the UK, in 1977, the principle that owners did not have the right to destroy art was sufficiently widespread that a reporter stopping people at random could find people who would agree with it. That at least should suffice to show that the principle existed “in the wild”.
All you need is what is conveyed by that useful old legal phrase and concept res ipsa loquitur (which I hereby appropriate for use in a philosophical sense rather than in the sense it might occur in a legal document). If someone slashes the Mona Lisa with a razor then we can all, authority and laity alike, reach the same reasonable conclusion that the slasher is mentally ill. The act itself establishes mental illness just as clearly as the barrel of legal legend establishes negligence (absent an earthquake) when it falls out of the warehouse window and onto the head of an unfortunate passerby.
Straw Man. The specific case I invoke- of buying the puppies for the sole purpose of killing them- is not at all the same as killing an animal for food.
Straw Man. The specific case I invoke- of buying the puppies for the sole purpose of killing them- is not at all the same as euthanizing a sadly unwanted animal.
I cannot believe you wrote this.
Straw Man. The specific case I invoke- of buying the puppies for the sole purpose of killing them- is not at all the same as killing an animal for food.
I see now I should have spelled out the obvious- that I was speaking of killing a domestic animal, a companion animal, a pet, for pleasure. Do you think that is conclusive evidence of mental illness, or not ?
So sorry.
It would have been more accurate to use the terms legally “neutral” and morally “neutral.” As in the law codes don’t care if you kill puppies for pleasure. Or rather, Bricker thinks they don’t care. More on that below.
And as in some personal moral codes do not care either. Bricker’s for example. As he says above: “I certainly wouldn’t applaud the wholesale killing of puppies, but I wouldn’t argue it should be prohibited.” On a personal level he does not applaud, and he does not condemn: he is neutral. And as a matter of law he thinks puppies should have as much right to life as a rat.
Some states (including Virginia) do and some states do not specify killing in their animal protection laws:
I have a feeling any judge who does not have recourse to the exact term “kill” on the books would be sufficiently outraged to find a catchall to employ. For example, a phrase such as “inhumane injury” might reasonably be interpreted to include death in this context.
It might be speculation, but I do not see why it should be considered groundless.
Anyway, you missed the boat completely on core issue of the legal basis by which a judge might act against who kills pets for pleasure. I may look around for supporting cites on the implied duties of a pet purchaser, or I may not. I have already taken your measure completely without that particular weapon.
How about buying an animal to feed, it, live, to another animal? I grant you that’s food, but it’s not food for humans.
[quote[I cannot believe you wrote this.[/quote]
And do you imagine that somehow refutes anything? Why the heck should care what you can believe? Is your capacity for belief somehow relevant?
Purely for pleasure, with no utility function?
Yes.
Some states (including Virginia) do and some states do not specify killing in their animal protection laws:
And how does that work with the rule of lenity in interpreting criminal law?
Your feelings, whatever they might be, are not a source of persuasion. Your imagination is not the way the law works.
Nonsense. Cite your claim.
And to save us both some time: if a sentence says, “I imagine,” “I suspect,” “I feel that…” or something similar, then it’s not a cite. It’s your opinion. A cite is a reference to a fact that did not originate in your head.
For example, you cited Virginia statutory law. Good! (You cited an incorrect, outdated reference, to be sure, but that didn’t harm your cite, since the relevant section was simply renumbered. What you cite as § 3.1-796.122 is now Va Code § 3.2-6570. )
I agree, and did not argue otherwise, that someone killing pets purely for pleasure breaks the law. But someone killing a pet to make a political statement? That’s a defense, since the only prohibits “…unncessarily beat[ing], maim[ing], mutilat[ing], or kill[ing] any animal…”
Skipping for now the legal question and going for a short version of the moral one that Stanislaus has been (skillfully) making an incremental approach on:
Don’t we have a moral obligation to consider the consequences for other people of our actions? Doesn’t that include valuing their happiness in the same way that I value mine? Don’t I have to take others’ happiness and preferences into account when making decisions? Am I not my brother’s keeper?
Of course it’s a balancing act, and there are all sorts of ways to piss off tons of people while still acting ethically. However, if I’m simply a billionaire who gets a visceral thrill from burning a Vermeer – and knowing full well the unhappiness that that would create in other people – shouldn’t I reject said burning as being immoral on the basis of harm? There’s no kind of calculus of felicity one can do where my pleasure from destroying the art even compares with the displeasure (ranging from annoyance to anguish) of millions of other people (billions, on a long enough timeline).
Again I am assuming that people generally act rationally, given their own postulates and assumptions. So it follows from that assumption that, to the billionaire, his visceral thrill outweighs the unhappiness that others feel.
I might protest – quite truthfully – that if I had to make such a calculus, it would come out the other way. But what right have I to demand that he follow my moral precepts instead of his own?
Well, first, I seriously doubt that such a person is doing any kind of accounting for others’ well-being. “It’s my right to do with it what I want and I want to burn it and no one can stop me” seems like the only plausible rationale…
… because, second, any actual calculus that does take other people into account and still finds desecration to be the best, most valuable course is flatly absurd. One would have to be either profoundly ignorant of how human beings respond emotionally or completely megalomaniacal to conclude that his evening’s pleasure outweighs the sense of loss for millions today and countless generations going forward. Either case would render his judgement something less than wholly valid and worthy of deference. Ironically, he’d be on much more solid footing just trying to argue that he doesn’t have to care about other people at all in this matter.
And, finally, of course you have the right to “demand” (for some values of that word) that someone behaves morally. That’s the whole bleedin’ point of discussing morality: We share certain values in common (such as “causing harm to other people is bad”), and, given those shared values, I think you ought to do X because of A, B, and C.
If I hold as a moral precept that property is theft and then calculate that the money in your wallet would provide more value if I took it and moved it to mine, you’d have every right to judge me immoral. Indeed, it would be truly bizarre for you to assume that I’m acting rationally and with everyone’s interests at heart – that I merely came to a different conclusion than you about the overall utility of your cash – instead of with a thinly-veiled self-interest. Likewise, if the Rembrandt owner holds that his property right is absolute and that he’s justified in destroying something of value to millions to gain some intangible value for himself, I am free to judge him. Because other people’s interests matter, and he’s acting as if they don’t.
Why couldn’t his action be a protest against the absurd amounts of money wrapped up in canvas and colored oil, instead of things that actually, as opposed to ‘merely’ spiritually, benefit humans? He might say that this is intended to shock the art-collecting world into a realization of the transitory nature of their collectibles, an effort to “burst the bubble” and restore sanity to the process.
What’s inherently implausible about that?
No. YOU think it’s absurd. He doesn’t.
Absolutely untrue. When protesters “occupy” a section of the city and snarl commuter traffic, can I declare that my loss of commuting time and convenience, and the similar loss of millions of other commuters, automatically trumps their desire to shine a light on whatever-the-heck they were protesting?
I certainly can weigh the two in my own mind and find in my favor, but does that give me the right to declare that their calculus is “profoundly ignorant” or “completely megalomaniacal [sic]?”
But isn’t a necessary first step to that process agreeing on the existence and specifics of those shared values? And if those shared values are not, in fact, shared, then what basis have you to declare that yours rule, and not his?
But neither you nor I were talking about that. I specifically postulated someone who burned his painting for his own enjoyment, and you responded that his happiness could outweigh the unhappiness he causes in others (not that he might have other, less offensive motives).
Really, I want to pin you down on this: in the case where the owner burns a Rembrandt for his own enjoyment and his defense is simply that it’s nobody’s business what he does with his own property, do you think there’s an ethical problem with that? Does it make a difference if his rationale is that his happiness outweighs everyone else’s unhappiness in this case?
The burning-as-artistic-expression case is certainly more interesting, but still not problem-free IMO.
Do you?
Of course not. Again, I was referring explicitly to the case where this guy “conclude[s] that his evening’s pleasure outweighs the sense of loss for millions,” not where he has some nobler purpose in mind. If he actually weighs it and concludes that his pleasure trumps everyone else’s combined pleasure, I’m comfortable with the quoted judgment.
Sure, but it’s a pretty low bar for starters. If someone recognizes harm to others as a bad thing there’s a basis for discussion. If he thinks harm to others isn’t relevant to his decision-making, then there might not be much of a debate, but I’m free to have an opinion about that as well.
I think the difficulty in determining the existence of an ethical problem is that I don’t share a set of common assumptions with the owner. I can’t prove my ethical point of view is correct, and he is free to discard it as unconvincing.
Look, I regard abortion as a moral wrong. But merely because I do doesn’t obligate you to agree with me, does it?
So my answer is: I personally would regard it as a ethical breach, but I would not say that my personal standard is of some universal quality such that the painting’s owner is ALSO obligated to regard it as an ethical breach. That is, if I were the owner, I would never do such a thing, but as a legislator, I would not vote for a law that forbid him from doing such a thing.
Let’s imagine that he thinks harm to others is of some weight, but in weighing the harm to others against his own enjoyment, he finds that his own enjoyment is of more weight in this matter.
The link discusses a promotional stunt in which participants can vote on the fate of Tête de Faune, a 1962 Picasso linocut. It will either be donated to the Art Institute of Chicago, or cut into hundreds of pieces and mailed to each participant.
Note that the prospective destroyers bought the Picasso. They own it.
Wow. Thanks for bumping this. It will be really interesting to see how this plays out. As a publicity stunt, it should be very effective - especially if the vote is to destroy it.
I fear it might be, simply because responsibility is widely distributed here: any one vote is pretty meaningless so the temptation is to vote “destroy” for a laugh without feeling any great burden. After all, if it is destroyed there will be thousands of others to blame, right?
If the vote is to destroy, it will be interesting to see what, if any, outcry there is!
But neither you nor I were talking about that. I specifically postulated someone who burned his painting for his own enjoyment, and you responded that his happiness could outweigh the unhappiness he causes in others (not that he might have other, less offensive motives).