area of knowledge of Ethics and the way of knowing of Reason.

Knowledge questions: To what extent is it ethical to glamorize/glorify immoral behavior through artistic add campaigns?

Real life situation:

Dolce & Gabbana



The controversial predecessor to Calvin Klein’s sexual assault advert; one of Dolce & Gabbana’s 2007 ad was pulled in several countries as it was thought to ‘glorify rape’.

Some people will look at this add and automatically presume it must be a result of the repulsive male mas-agonist pricks running the fashion industry. others will be astounded by the provocative nature of the add as a whole and suggest that it is anti feminism and shows severe disregard to the concepts of gender equality. The reason we cannot make these assumptions and regard the add as being completely inappropriate is because it has "Artistic Value" which leads me to my knowledge question:

To what extent is it ethical to glamorize/glorify immoral behavior through artistic add campaigns?

Art is a form of expression, and Fashion is regarded as art. the question remains, do we really have the right to judge this add if it a form of artistic expression? Rape, murder, theft slander, drug abuse and many other forms of immoral behavior are expressed through different artistic mediums such as paintings, music, fashion, poetry and many others. we listen to songs with inappropriate lyrics promoting drugs and violence, not necessarily being influenced by them but respecting the message they send purely because we classify it as "ART"

The following add shows a woman being held down by a man while two men watch on in amusement. they are all dressed very elegantly and the woman's sexual demeanor and helpless expression clearly portrays her as the victim in this situation.  or is it? is it possible that the add could signify something completely different? perhaps the image is a fantastical depiction of the woman's sexual fantasies? and if this where the case, doesn't that make the woman the dominant figure in the photograph? which leads me to my next point. Perspective. 

How can we label this image as being immoral or "wrong" if we all have different interpretations of the work? Non of us know the intentions of the designer for this particular add, all we know is what our minds tell us, which is result of of our personal beliefs and ideals. thus there is no way for us to accurately interpret what is going on in this photograph in its original context. 

However, the add was still banned from 23 countries. does this suggest that perhaps there is a form of global understanding? and that not everyone interpenetrates the image completely differently and that the photograph is universally rejected? this particular add was published in over 115 major fashion magazines including vogue and Marie Claire which shows that there was some form of appreciation for the photo's artistic value. Which proves that controversial subjects are more accepted when expressed through artistic mediums.

Another example of immorality expressed through artistic advertising is the Sisley fifth avenue add poster:

So does making it art make it right? This goes back to the concept of propaganda, and promoting brands and people through artistic pathways such as music and colorful advertisements. propaganda is often used to sell things and ideas with aren't necessarily morally correct and can be seen as a form of "Brainwashing" due to the fact that it involves the manipulation of the product being sold as well as the misinterpretation of it. 

In my opinion the photograph about isn't necessarily advertising rape through fashion, but advertising fashion through rape. What i mean by this is that the provocative nature of the add is meant to capture you and make the brand seem more interesting and riskay. I do not think that the intention of the designer was to use his brand to promote rape culture, but rather to give it the edge that it needed to spark people's imaginations and provoke their curiosity. 

science and uncertainty

The article on science in relation to error really opened my eyes when it came to the lack of certainty that came along with science. I immediately started thinking about our education system and i started to wonder about the things i had learnt in biology class today. Science evolves around discovery, finding out new information, but often this new information is different from the old information. So how do i know that the things i learn in science class are really viable? We were talking about HIV aids in class today and when we asked about a cure for the virus the answer was "there is no cure" i began to wonder, about all the diseases in the past that probably didn't have cures that perfectly treatable today, and this led me to think about about how the things i learn in biology today will differ from the things my children will learn 30 years from now. Its a taunting thought. The idea that perhaps what i am learning maybe wrong. That even something as credible as science isn't really set in stone. 

In the article there was an expressed fear of the dangers of the never ending quest for knowledge that is science. I do not share the same fear. In my opinion knowledge is key and even though it is a never ending cycle of trial and error we are always one step closer to finding an answer. Science and the discovery of new information does nothing but benefit us as human beings. Think of all the amazing phenomenons that have come out the advancements in technology over the years. The recently created electronic heart could save millions of people who are currently on waiting lists for heart donors, with this new technology they might have a chance of survival. New prosthetic limbs are being created for amputees that feel more and more realistic, a new prosthetic leg that is being worked on is said to be the most realistic feeling one yet. Advancements are not only being made in medicine but also in electronics. The new hybrid is said to run on minimum fuel consumption with the speed and efficiency of an SUV. 

All of these discoveries wouldn't have been made without dedicated scientists searching for answers. If we hold science back we are holding ourselves back because the more you know the more you can use to your advantage. The more knowledge we obtain the more we are able to manipulate it, we can only make changes and improvements in the world if we work to discover its secrets. We take umbrella's out with us when we see grey clouds because we were taught that grey clouds indicate rain. This is all knowledge that is proven and discovered by science and we depend on it 100% everyday in everything we do. We must support it, but we must also question it. In order to advance in science we must also accept that we never really have the answers, which is strange because it sort of questions the whole point of it. If we never really learn anything and all of our assumptions are always faulty then why continue with any research at all? in my opinion in order for us to advance as a race we must continue to grow and evolve.

 The real issue with science is just the constant changing of information. Alot of people wont be willing to let go of the things they had initially learnt because of new advancements in technology. The reason behind this in my opinion is the way in which we are educated. We are taught in school that the things we learn are factual and there isn't really a grey area. When i  open my biology textbook i see alot of bullet points with sentences highlighted in red with the words "NEED TO KNOW" printed in big bold letters above them. in school science is presented as concluded research, as something that is finished and remains the same forever when in reality this is not the case. so how are human beings expected to accept constant advancements in technology when every generation is brought up to believe that the information we learnt in school is constant and unchanging?

Sudanese cultural markings (sholokh)

In Sudan we have a cultural practice called Sholokh. basically it consists of men and women cutting small pieces of their flesh to make patterns and markings. men do it to indicate that they have gone to battle and women do it because it is thought to be beautiful. This tradition has gone on for years and it is one of the only pure Sudanese traditions left in the culture. 

Tribal marks which can also be described as facial marks though well dominated in Africa, can be traced to some foreigners who were living in Egypt in the 5th century BC. During that time, a Greek historian, Herodotus wrote about some foreigners living in Egypt who cut their foreheads with knives to differentiate themselves from the Egyptians. This practice was further adopted years later when several kings of various kingdoms in Africa, started invading other kings and their people for land and other resources. The invaders therefore mark themselves as well as their family members to differentiate themselves from the captured kings and their family members whom they now regard as their slaves. so it not only for beauty but is a sign of wealth and represents high social standing. 

Tribal marks are mostly given to people at a very young age most especially when they are babies. This is because at that age, the child doesn't have a say on decisions to giving him/her tribal marks. The people who make these marks use either razor blades or sharp knives to cut the face and they have native dye, pigmentation or black paste usually from grinded charcoal dust which is put into the open wound to stain the marks, stop the bleeding and to make the wound heal fast. It is the black paste applied to the wound that makes the mark permanent and never fade away growing alongside the bearer.

my moral situation:

When i was in the 7th grade in Sudan. i was in my science exam and i was stuck on a certain question, my science teacher saw i was struggling and quickly told me the right answer. i wrote it down but felt guilty afterwards i knew it was cheating but i tried to convince my self that it wasn't that bad because my teacher was the one who told me the answer. i moved on and finished my exam, but before handing in my exam i scratched out the answer. i had decided that it was wrong and that even though the teacher was the one who told me the answer i would still have an unfair advantage. i still don't understand why the teacher did that, on one hand it was empathetic of her and i felt that it was coming from a good place, but it has put me in an awkward situation. in terms of morals it is hard to tell where the teacher was coming from and it is hard to tell weather what she was doing was wrong or not. cheating is always wrong but it made me wonder about a grey area. i wondered if anything could be 100% wrong. i feel like everything is circumstantial. there are things that are just inhumane and unarguably "WRONG". but there are somethings that need to be looked at with a bit of an open heart, and people need to learn to be more sympathetic and understanding of peoples situations, because in times of desperation you may find yourself doing something that is morally questionable in order to survive, your going to have to push someone down in order to get ahead, your going to take shortcuts and do things that will make you unhappy with yourself at times but you do them anyway because life is a series of difficult decisions and in order for one to be successful in life sometimes the ugly path must be taken, i am in no way saying that you should kill or steal or do anything like that because what i am talking about is very different. i am just saying that as people we must not be ignorant, we must not judge others based o past mistakes they have made and we should be able to differentiate between acts of disparity and acts of immorals or cruelty and we need to stop seeing things as being completely black and white because in reality thats just not the way they are. i chose not to use the answer that day and i am proud of myself, but im sure someone else who was allot more desperate and unprepared would have, and if they did, would it really be that wrong......?

views on craverns argument.

I think that the argument presented by Cravern is valid because the premises on which he presented his argument is true. if we do not act in order to prevent global warming it will end in either catastrophe or minimum losses. and if we do act on it, it will result in economic losses but will ultimately protect us from a potential disaster.

language thoughts......

Defining language:

You cant really define it at all, i see it as a way of communicating with another person and having a sort of mutual understanding between the sender and the receiver so in my my mind even things like hand gestures or winks or smiles are considered as language because they communicate a message, a sigh or a frown can indicate your mood and other people will be able to pick up on what your giving out because frowns and sighs are know in "language" as things that define sadness, just like the actual word "sadness" would. So i do not think it makes sense to say that language is some diversified complex idea that was developed or created by intelligent and superior beings. I see it as being the most basic thing in the world. A frown has the same effect as a descriptive paragraph talking about how sad someone is, they both communicate emotions and are a form of expression.

In my opinion stating that language has some sort of set of rules and that it is conspired or created is ignorant of us as humans.....

If there is a different between language and communication then what is it? It would make no sense to me if someone told me that language was somehow grammatical and was written and that sign language wasn't a real language. People have said that language is a form of communication but what other forms of communication are there? to me it seems like whenever we want to express our selves we use some form of language. Weather it be body language or text or sign language they all fall under the same category which is language.

So if someone wanted to talk to me about how language was a form of communication then i challenge them to tell me exactly what form of communication does not classify as language? People are narcissistic by nature and like to believe in the idea that they have created or developed something that once never was. We like to think that we somehow created language when in fact there is nothing more simple. You cannot say that the languages that the most early and basic humans spoke does not classify as "language" you cannot say that because they did not have text or writing that the way in which they communicated was not language.

In conclusion i believe that people have the  need to specify language and make it seem more specific and critical because we want to believe that we have somehow created some sort of evolution and also because we want ownership over the entire idea of language. I personally think that language is ETERNAL. It is something that has always been here and something that will always be here because people and anything living for that matter need to communicate in order to survive. We have evolved and created the languages that we speak today from ancient languages, and those ancient languages evolved from even older languages, and i'm sure those languages originated from even older forms of communication. Basically what i'm saying is that language and communication are the same, and that communication is a necessity to be able to maintain life on this planet.

Is seeing believing?

Is seeing believing? 

This question can be perceived in a variety of different ways, seeing is not believing in the sense that sometimes you can be fooled by your senses for example seeing a mirage in an empty desert.

In another sense seeing is believing because it creates justification. For example atheists do not believe in a higher power because in their minds there is no proof of one existing. People are always seeking knowledge and are always trying to answer questions, seeing is believing in the sense that when you see something you believe in its existence because it has been proved to you, because you have seen it you now know it exists. Another example is if you were to lie about the grade you got on a test your parents might not believe you have done so well until they see the grade for themselves, this goes back to the idea that sight is a form of justification or (proof) of somethings existence.

In my opinion seeing is believing because when you see something you know it is genuine and that it exists in real life, taking into account that sometimes we tend to twist or wrongly interpret  what we see, we still believe what we believe because we have seen it.