I’m far from being the right guy to answer this, but my $0.02: if I were one of the people in that photo, I’d probably feel a bit uncomfortable by the fact that the photo had been taken without my consent and republished here.
It wouldn’t be a huge thing, but it would be unpleasant.
If I felt like you were treating me like one of the people in that photo when I was, say, going on a job interview or going out to dinner, I would feel extremely uncomfortable and pretty angry about it.
That suggests to me that treating people in my life the way you describe treating the people in that photo isn’t actually acceptable.
It more weakly suggests to me that treating people in that photo the way you describe treating the people in that photo isn’t actually acceptable.
I can see why someone would be annoyed if treated as an object in all these ways when you’re meeting them in person for dinner. But I don’t see how that suggests that treating the representations of people in the photo is wrong. What’s the logic, there?
Also, if the issue is consent, then do all the photos where women give consent for their nude photos to be published pass the test? I think not. That’s not what you were suggesting, but then I’m not sure what you were suggesting with that paragraph. Could you elaborate?
As I said, I estimate that I would be made uncomfortable by being aware of having my image treated the way you describe treating the images of those people, and I would therefore prefer not to have my image treated that way.
I consider the people in that photo part of the same reference class that contains me—that is, we’re basically all people together—and thus I infer from my estimated discomfort about my own counterfactual experience that they also would prefer to not have their images treated that way.
My credibly precommitting to the general principle of not treating people in ways they would rather not be treated (whether they know I’m doing it or not) lowers everybody’s estimation of the likelihood that I am treating them that way (without their knowledge), which I endorse. (1)
You may be asking a different question, though, which is something like “what’s the logic for my being made uncomfortable by such photos of me being viewed in the first place?”
And, well, mostly that’s not a reasoned conclusion, it’s an emotional reaction. That said, being treated the way you describe constitutes a reduction of my status, and status is a valuable thing, so I might well reason my way to the same conclusion if I had enough data. It doesn’t seem a particularly flawed judgment.
And, perhaps unrelatedly: yes, consent is relevant. If I give uncoerced and informed consent for someone to view certain photos of me, I am not made uncomfortable by their doing so. I infer from that, that if someone gives uncoerced and informed consent to having me view certain photos of them, they are not made uncomfortable by my doing so. Which makes that a completely different case.
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(1) I have sort of picked up the impression that some folks arrive in some superior fashion at the same category of conclusions that I get at through thinking about the usefulness of credibly precommitting to a class of actions by way of a notion of acausal relationships between specific actions, and that this is related to a Timeless Decision Theory that is popular here, but I don’t understand that well enough to invoke it here.
My own emotions are different. I wouldn’t mind being one of the people in the mud pit, having my photo taken unknowingly amidst such a large group.
Also, on the issue of consent: If we required consent from each person in such photographs, it would be nearly impossible to ever publish photographs of large groups of people.
Re: consent… sure, I agree. Or at least more difficult. That doesn’t change my conclusions about how consent informs my judgment of whether a particular act is OK.
Re: your emotions… fair enough. If I use you as a reference class for those folks instead of me, my conclusion changes.
My logic is similar, but I assumed the Playboy photo was staged, and thus the model presumably gave permission and indeed was paid for their trouble. So I think my reaction to that one is probably caused by something else.
I’m far from being the right guy to answer this, but my $0.02: if I were one of the people in that photo, I’d probably feel a bit uncomfortable by the fact that the photo had been taken without my consent and republished here.
It wouldn’t be a huge thing, but it would be unpleasant.
If I felt like you were treating me like one of the people in that photo when I was, say, going on a job interview or going out to dinner, I would feel extremely uncomfortable and pretty angry about it.
That suggests to me that treating people in my life the way you describe treating the people in that photo isn’t actually acceptable.
It more weakly suggests to me that treating people in that photo the way you describe treating the people in that photo isn’t actually acceptable.
I can see why someone would be annoyed if treated as an object in all these ways when you’re meeting them in person for dinner. But I don’t see how that suggests that treating the representations of people in the photo is wrong. What’s the logic, there?
Also, if the issue is consent, then do all the photos where women give consent for their nude photos to be published pass the test? I think not. That’s not what you were suggesting, but then I’m not sure what you were suggesting with that paragraph. Could you elaborate?
My logic goes something like this:
As I said, I estimate that I would be made uncomfortable by being aware of having my image treated the way you describe treating the images of those people, and I would therefore prefer not to have my image treated that way.
I consider the people in that photo part of the same reference class that contains me—that is, we’re basically all people together—and thus I infer from my estimated discomfort about my own counterfactual experience that they also would prefer to not have their images treated that way.
My credibly precommitting to the general principle of not treating people in ways they would rather not be treated (whether they know I’m doing it or not) lowers everybody’s estimation of the likelihood that I am treating them that way (without their knowledge), which I endorse. (1)
You may be asking a different question, though, which is something like “what’s the logic for my being made uncomfortable by such photos of me being viewed in the first place?”
And, well, mostly that’s not a reasoned conclusion, it’s an emotional reaction. That said, being treated the way you describe constitutes a reduction of my status, and status is a valuable thing, so I might well reason my way to the same conclusion if I had enough data. It doesn’t seem a particularly flawed judgment.
And, perhaps unrelatedly: yes, consent is relevant. If I give uncoerced and informed consent for someone to view certain photos of me, I am not made uncomfortable by their doing so. I infer from that, that if someone gives uncoerced and informed consent to having me view certain photos of them, they are not made uncomfortable by my doing so. Which makes that a completely different case.
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(1) I have sort of picked up the impression that some folks arrive in some superior fashion at the same category of conclusions that I get at through thinking about the usefulness of credibly precommitting to a class of actions by way of a notion of acausal relationships between specific actions, and that this is related to a Timeless Decision Theory that is popular here, but I don’t understand that well enough to invoke it here.
Interesting.
My own emotions are different. I wouldn’t mind being one of the people in the mud pit, having my photo taken unknowingly amidst such a large group.
Also, on the issue of consent: If we required consent from each person in such photographs, it would be nearly impossible to ever publish photographs of large groups of people.
Re: consent… sure, I agree. Or at least more difficult. That doesn’t change my conclusions about how consent informs my judgment of whether a particular act is OK.
Re: your emotions… fair enough. If I use you as a reference class for those folks instead of me, my conclusion changes.
My logic is similar, but I assumed the Playboy photo was staged, and thus the model presumably gave permission and indeed was paid for their trouble. So I think my reaction to that one is probably caused by something else.