CEPPA Talk – Macalester Bell (Bryn Mawr College)

Title: On Photographic Wrongs

Abstract: While ethicists have had little to say on the subject, people often feel wronged by the creation and dissemination of their photographic image. After describing several cases in which people have felt wronged by a photograph, I’ll go on to offer a taxonomy for thinking about these cases. Many of these purported wrongs can be easily accommodated by dominant ethical theories as tokens of recognized types of wrongdoing. However, I think some of these testimonies point to the existence of a sui generis type of wrongdoing which I will refer to as a photographic wrong. I will then attempt to make the case that photographic wrongs are genuine moral wrongs, and I will offer an account of what grounds this wrong.