Blog 4: The Ethics of Digital Necromancy
In
this week’s class we learned about the two ethical theories utilitarianism and
Kant's deontology. Utilitarianism is a
form of consequentialism that concentrates on maximizing happiness and
minimizing pain. Therefore, whatever causes happiness and decreases pain is
morally right. Whatever causes pain or unhappiness is morally wrong
(Rosenstand, 232). On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Kant's
deontology or the theory of moral obligation. Deontology focuses on the
intentions of an action instead of the consequences. So, if you walked your neighbor’s dog while
they were on vacation and the dog broke off the leash and ran away you would be
morally right. Your action of doing your neighbor the favor of watching his
animal overthrows your consequence of losing the dog.
This
leads to our topic of the week which is digitally remastering dead celebrities.
It's not only becoming the norm in Hollywood, but the music industry as well.
This technology has been around awhile now with such demonstrations as Tupac
Shakur's CGI Coachella performance back in 2012. Recently, the re-imagining of
Bruce Lee for a Johnnie Walker commercial has stirred up quite the buzz. Most actors
now-a-days are getting their bodies scanned so that they can control and sell
their image rights later in life. Unfortunately, that's not the case with
actors from the first half of the 20th century that have passed away. Since
most of these actors had no foresight of this technology their imaging rights
can be used freely. The Galaxy Chocolate ad of Audrey Hepburn and Johnnie
Walker ad of Bruce Lee are shining examples of this.
The
Kant deontologist might say that the re-imagining of such stars is morally
wrong since the intention of using Audrey Hepburn's stardom is to make money
for a chocolate company. The utilitarian might say that this action if morally
right since even though the intention was to make money off Audrey Hepburn, she
has now been exposed to millions in a new generation of kids that might never
have known about her. Soon those kids are watching her movies and thus honoring
the memory of a once phenomenal actor. Either way you look at it, the industry
is walking a very fine line and might want to consider their actions should
they keep doing this.
Works Cited
Rosenstand, N. (2013). Using Your
Reason, Part 1: Utilitarianism. In The Moral Of The Story An
Introduction To Ethics (7th ed., p. 232). New York, New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies.
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