Essay by Nathalie Dürnberger
Question: Does the end justify the means?
Module: Documentary Photography WS 2012
Module Leader: Honey Salvadori
Content
Introduction
Approaching Kant
Moral Absolutism and Journalistic Photography
Conclusion
List of Sources
Introduction
Answering the right of the public to be informed and the question of appropriate presentation of facts or truth, the reliable journalist – as a vital seeker, editor, and provider of information for other individuals – bears the responsibility to a working moral of impartiality and fairness [NUJ, 1936.].
Truth means here not only to strive for the most possible objectivity, but also to disclose a genuine subjective access at the same time, so that the pretension of objectivity is appropriately relativized.
This essay propounds, that the inherent duty of the journalistic photographer is, to show and reflect truth in the motif, in order to leave the autonomy to interpret, and furthermore to find to the own subjective truth, at the beholder.
Referring to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, truth is considered to be an absolute duty of the journalist, for which the categorical imperative and the role of the free will are examined, in order to view photographs of two contrasting work practices in the approached theory’s perspective. It will become clear, that the author emphasizes a point of view, in which the photographs appear not as the last end or consequence, but more as part of the means in the name of truth as the duty.
Approaching Kant
The regard on action as a just functional mean, which is related to a specific end, can easily jump to the conclusion, that the end implicates the action’s – hence relative – right- or wrongness. Contrasting to this consequentialist point of view, deontological ethics deals with people’s action itself to be based on absolute duties, which is approached in this chapter, using the BBC’s treatise ‘About duty-based ethics’ as a main source.
Concerned with absolute goodness as an action’s possible inherent property, the representative of duty-based ethics, Immanuel Kant, found that a good will alone is rationally for all people agreeable good in whatever context it may be found. Therefore he concluded that – regardless the consequences – only an action out of a good will was right.
To identify an action of good will, Kant established the Categorical Imperative as a basic universal principle, which can be fathomed by two questions or declarations, each emphasising different aspects.
The first question tests the action’s universality:
Is it my will, that the maxim of my action should become a general law? (‘Always act in such a way that you can also will that the maxim of your action should become a universal law.’)
By the example of telling the truth, one might ask: ‘Would I want there to be a universal rule that says, it is ok to tell a lie?’
Supposing, one prefers the possibility to trust in other people’s statements, as a basic communicative condition for human societies, one assumes then, that it shouldn’t become a general practice to tell lies.
Also inherent to the aspect of universality is the rational possibility of lying to become a general rule. Since no one could anymore hold another person’s statements as true, the required value of statements would be nullified, which furthermore would lead to the impossibility to tell a lie – or in short: If true statements cease to exist, also untrue statements do. It turns out that telling a lie to become a general practice is not only not worthwhile, but also rationally impossible.
The second approach to the Categorical Imperative emphasises the importance of people’s equality and freedom, and so, how and by which intention people are treated in an action:
‘Act so that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.’
Correspondingly, people must not just be used to achieve something else – neither by tricking manipulating, nor by deceiving, which consolidates the idea that the end can never justify the means.
As for Kant, the first driving intention (but not obligatory the only reason) of an action of good will, related to the examined Categorical Imperative, is the duty:
‘Do the right thing for the right reason, because it is the right thing to do.’
The significance of the human free will as the basic condition for the good will of an action becomes recognisable through Kant’s opinion that human beings holding the reason and therefore have the choice to resist mechanical causality. So, the ethical decision lies within the subject and can be seen as a regulative morality inherent to autonomous human beings. Freedom according to Kant is thus not arbitrariness, but the freedom and the voluntary decision to follow moral laws, given by the own reason, which means that the found moral maxim has to correspondent with one’s actual will [Kant, 1900, p.412].
Moral Absolutism and Journalistic Photography
Remembering the journalistic work’s obligation on impartiality and fairness, the binding necessity of an absolutist point of view on the work’s morality according to Kant, becomes comprehensible. Like it is shown in the example of lying to become common, an unreliable journalist nullifies the cause and so the value of the work in itself, as from a public point of view, the integrity and genuineness of information counts.
As the objective view on events is not only an aspired property but also out of reach, the journalist has to provide at least several angles, which does not exclude his personal point of view, but rather more requires it, as the fundamental skill for documentary work is, to engage oneself with the certain subject.
To examine the distinction between genuine documentary work and propaganda, as an influencing form of communication, where only one side of an argument is presented, the attention is now drawn on photographs by Sally Mann, an American documentary photographer and artist, opposing to photographs by the Russian artist and photographer Alexander Rodchenko.
Sally Mann: ‘Body Farm’ – Shots from forensic decomposition grounds. [© Sally Mann 2010]
Alexander Rodchenko [Bunyan, 2012.]: ‘Morning exercises’ (1932) – Student Campus in Lefortovo. ‘White Sea Canal’ (1933) – Political prisoners. ‘Young Gliders’ (1933) – Sketch of a double page for the magazine ‘USSR under Construction’. [© Alexander Rodchenko]
Sally Mann:
The series shows directly dead human bodies and confronts the beholder soberly with the issue of transience. The three photographs make evident, that different views on the subject are provided. In comparison, the first image, very close and in black and white, bears a calming artistic aesthetic, while the second photograph seems more like an objective crime scene shot. The captured light situation of the third picture adds an ambivalently appearing peaceful harmony to the corpse.
Revealing the poetic sensitiveness of the photographer’s eye for society’s rejected issues, ‘Body Farm’ occurs at the same time as a bluntly, real, and normally avoided confrontation of death, and therefore enriches the beholders view on a difficult but relevant subject.
Alexander Rodchenko:
In all three examples the camera angles give specific perspectives on the shown people, associated with power, conformism, and performance, but also it expresses the constructivist idea of that time: Art should serve a useful purpose in society, as it was here supposed to be a catalyst for social change. [Turri, 2009.]
‘Radical photographic style was combined with cutting edge graphics in a magazine called ‘USSR in Construction’. Designed by Rodchenko, it was a showcase of political propaganda glorifying the achievements of the Soviet system.’ [BBC, 2012.]
With regard to the particular contemporary context, the propaganda potential to manipulate a public’s attitude becomes her not only evident, considering the used perspectives and purposeful editing, but also because of the disclosed and clear artist’s statement as a constructivist.
Conclusion
Whether it is in a proper documentary or journalistic way with the intention to inform the public or to widen or direct the beholder’s sight by a certain truth, or whether it is to distribute and propagate ideas – the significance of photographs as a possibility to expose point of views on subjects or events demonstrates that they have a functional value as means to follow an intention, while the actual end can be found beyond the photographer’s work. Therefore, the responsibility of the journalist lies within the mean, and so within the produced photograph, itself.
The essay has explained, that the duty of a journalist is to show truth, which – according to Kant – should be the operational first intention. This moral absolutistic view on journalistic work correspondents with the public’s right, to be informed, and furthermore excludes the choice for a reliable journalist to produce propaganda. Therefore Kant’s moral absolutism can be seen as the proper journalistic view to be applied in the working practice, so that the means justify the end but not the other way round.
List of Sources
BBC (2012) ‘About duty-based ethics’. [Internet] http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/duty_1.shtml [Accessed 21 November 2012].
BBC (2012) ‘The Genius of Photography’. [Internet] http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/rodchenko.shtml [Accessed 22 November 2012].
Bunyan, Marcus: (2012) “exhibition: ‘status – 24 contemporary documents’ at fotomuseum Winterthur, zurich”. [Internet] http://artblart.com/tag/fotomuseum-winterthur/ [Accessed 22 November 2012].
Kant, Immanuel: (1900) ‘Grundlage zur Methaphysik der Sitten’. Berlin: Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Mann, Sally: (2010) ‘Body Farm’. [Internet] http://sallymann.com/selected-works/body-farm [Accessed 22 November 2012].
National Union of Journalists (1936) ‘NUJ Code of Conduct’. [Internet] http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=174 [Accessed 21 November 2012].
Turri, Jesse: ‘Designers you should know: Alexander Rodchenko’. [Internet] http://jesseturri.com/wordpress/?p=210 [Accessed 22 November 2012].
Studies and Arts 