The author of this document discusses the ethical means of spying by giving examples to either oppose or defend it. One of these examples is led by Glenn Michael. In essence of trying to win custody for his six year old girl, he took the situation upon himself to do what he thinks is necessary for the future sake of his child. He came to believe there is an underlying principle as such where his ex-wife’s sexuality is presumed to have an adverse effect on the child. He presented the case in a family court and asked if he could present strong evidence to support a heterosexual father is better fit for the child than a homosexual mother who enjoys affairs. Knowing this, he used the court as a base to “provide” strong evidence by legal means. What he did next can be considered legal because all he did was drive to the home of the ex-wife’s and somehow snuck up next to a window to take semi-nude pictures. I think this is where the author meant he broke the rules of the game. Given the task with authority’s permission, he used legal means to obtain pictures of homosexual activity. It was just unfortunate that the lesbians’ affair would leave a window unobstructed while having sex. With the presented evidence, Michael essentially won custody of his child and was later sued in a civil case by Ms. Plaxico for invasion of privacy. Ms. Plaxico ended up losing and filed an appeal which also resulted in her losing.
Given that multiple courts ruled in favor of Glenn Michaels, I disagree with the court proceedings. He emphatically broke the rules of the game. Using an official guided task to do whatever it takes is a cheap win. It is also a cheap win that in this case, resulted in something far more important for this person than a person who does not have a child, who may puts more emphasis on privacy rights. He also broke the rules of the game by driving into someone’s property then walking up to a window and taking pictures. This violates “human privacy” on all levels. While I agree with the public that, if you have a window it should be kept shut, and blinds covered, this was not the case. He proceeded to record, and print photographs of his ex-wife being in the sake of her own home where she felt utmost safe, private, and privileged to engage in the innocent act of her sexual nature by having pleasure with whatever she wanted. Again this justifies that Glenn Michael has broken the rules of the game. There is a certain level of expectations that a human does not violate and this is one of them. If this type of manner is widely accepted (in means of the public), then Glenn Michael should offer/suffer his privacy rights in exchange for violating someone else’s. (Eye for an Eye) For example, what if Ms. Plaxico later snuck up to his window to take pictures of Glenn Michaels nude inside his house while engaging in heterosexual activity as a father with blow-up dolls, and then present the findings as evidence to back her claim up that this is an invasion of privacy. How would the court rule that? As the author has pointed out, there could have been many other ways to determine who could be a better parent, spying the way Michael did, breaks down the rules and boundaries of expectations in life. Why have bathroom stalls and toilets with borders. It should be an oversight where we can all see what we are doing. LOL
_______________________________________________________________
Why did Glenn Michaels violate the privacy of a person at its
own home?
This statement could be
asked and defended in many ways. I am totally against snooping, surveillance, and
monitoring someone in their own private home but in this case, we would have to
look in both ways. I agreed with “Allen’s response” last week, but something I did
not go into detail was, looking at the point of view of Glenn Michaels. In this
case, a loving, caring, father finds out his ex-wife is sleeping with other
females, and strictly believes this would be a bad example for his daughter
should this have any bearing on her life growing up. In his mind, he needs to
do anything and everything he possibly can to change that. Given that fact,
winning parental custody is the most important thing on his mind. As I have said
prior, I do not have a child, but if I did, I am more than 100% sure that I would
have the same mentality to go out of my way to provide everything necessary for
my child. I would do everything humanly
possible to attain that goal. I would have done so in other methods that
are more suitable and less judgmental than Glenn Michaels but ultimate the goal
here is “to do what you can, and ensure
victory at all costs”.
Was snooping on the ex-wife during lesbian sex wrong? Obviously
yes, but he needed this. It was the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the
given situation. We aren’t talking about murder or anything that violates life
and death judgments, but what this does violate is moral principle. The moral principle here does not outweigh
the cost of his daughter living a normal life. I define normal as a mean of
a parent living a straight life, not being exposed to anything that’s NOT
ordinary (gay) and something the public widely accepts; a straight-non homosexual parent. At that moment, the situation presented
itself, and the ends justified the moral means.
This also brings up gay rights. Do I have anything against gay
people? No to the 100%. What people wants to do, and choose to do with their
life is their right. I’d prefer/want/need my children to grow up normal without
this kind of parental exposure to them. I want my own children to observe a
regular life and be able to make that decision on their own. But if being around
homosexual activity 24/7 puts them in the only observable position where they
feel is correct/right, by all means we aren’t giving them an opportunity start
at a neutral. This “neutral” starting point is what I consider “normal life”. What
I am trying to explain is exposure at early ages can lead children to understand
the examples being made in front of them and what is “okay” and is the “normal life”.
I do not consider living a gay life is
normal and not to the extent of my children. That’s why parenting concerns
are always and constantly on the rise as we continue to see issues with
children at school who do the things they do.
In other news, a similar topic was also brought up here in Massachusetts
this week, where Marty Walsh was trying to reach an agreement with parade
organizers are not allowing gays to attend with outerwear slogans displaying “gays”.
If this life is the norm, this topic would not always be so vibrant on the
news, and be widely accepted.
Megaman Bloo, you've got a really interesting and complex argument here. I want to look closely at some of the parts of it.
ReplyDelete1) "Was snooping on the ex-wife during lesbian sex wrong? Obviously yes, but he needed this. It was the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the given situation." This is a complex claim--perhaps you can help us tease out what's going on here, in terms of moral argument? Glenn Michaels needed to capitalize on the given situation, perhaps because of his abovementioned desire to create what he believed was the most advantageous situation for his child. Yet you also say it was wrong. I can see why it would be something Michaels would *want* to do, but you also argue that it's wrong. So, is it morally acceptable or not? Does Michaels' self-interest (his attainment of what he wants) outweigh some other measure of moral goodness?
2) "The moral principle here does not outweigh the cost of his daughter living a normal life." I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. The moral principle--what moral principle is this? Somehow I suspect this has to do with assigning the value "wrong" to the situation discussed in 1), but I'm not sure what the connection is, and I don't want to put words in your mouth.
2b) Yet you say the moral principle doesn't outweigh the daughter's living a normal life. One way I could think of this is an idea of competing goods. We often can conceive of this in the opposite way--choosing the lesser of two evils. But we also need to think about choosing the greater of two goods. Could that be what you mean here--that there are competing goods, the mother's right to privacy and the good of the daughter living a "normal" life, and the second is more important than the first? If so, why? You say the ends justified the means--again, why?
3) Normal! Normal is such an interesting criterion in moral judgments. There's a concept called the "is-ought problem", often associated with David Hume (18th century, Scottish). The basic claim is that people often make claims about what ought to be on the basis of what is--that descriptive turns into prescriptive. But, Hume and others questioned, is that really morally justifiable? Does the fact that something is common or typical contribute at all to whether it is morally good? Why or why not?
3b) Or, since you comment on social acceptance, perhaps you're not saying that what is normal is good in an absolute sense, but rather that normalcy is *advantageous*, and a parent has an obligation to a child to offer them the most advantageous life possible. People talk about "straight privilege"--the idea that heterosexual people, or people who present to the world as heterosexual, have an easier time of it because of the broad acceptance of heterosexuality--often this is combined with the claim that straight privilege exists and that it is unfair. The idea that a parent has an obligation to provide a child with the greatest possible advantages (including straight privilege) is an interesting one. Is that what you're saying? If so, how far can we go with this? Does a parent who is, let's say, disabled or ill have the obligation to make treatment decisions based on presenting to the world as as normal as possible to avoid ableism that disadvantages his or her child? Does a parent have an obligation to make decisions about how to spend his or her money that always put the child's needs and advantages first? Does a parent who is an adherent of a religion that is a minority religion in the place where the family lives need to convert to the majority religion so that his or her child has the advantage of growing up familiar with a religion that most of the population regards as correct?
Things to think about!
yes, the above " The idea that a parent has an obligation to provide a child with the greatest possible advantages (including straight privilege) is an interesting one." is exactly where I was trying to get at, and your comments have given me a very interesting thought to look at this entire scenario in a different way. I wouldn't of delve that deep into it as you have mentioned although. Like I wouldn't of thought of it that way. But very very very interesting!
ReplyDelete"Does a parent who is, let's say, disabled or ill have the obligation to make treatment decisions based on presenting to the world as as normal as possible to avoid ableism that disadvantages his or her child? Does a parent have an obligation to make decisions about how to spend his or her money that always put the child's needs and advantages first? Does a parent who is an adherent of a religion that is a minority religion in the place where the family lives need to convert to the majority religion so that his or her child has the advantage of growing up familiar with a religion that most of the population regards as correct?"