Notes on Ethics

Ethics are theories of the good. The principle good is happiness. Happiness means physical pleasure as well as higher pleasures of the mind, such as satisfaction, wisdom, peace, and a sense of well-being. All things that can have some conscious sensation of physical pain and/or mental anguish are subject to the ethic of happiness and thus deserve moral consideration. Justice is a sense of equality, balance, and fairness. It means each gets exactly what he deserves, no more and no less. When one does work he undergoes some pain in that he expends some of his energy and time. He expends this energy now in the expectation that he will receive some commensurate or even superior good later. When he expends energy doing good toward another, there is a sense of deservedness of an equal good in return. When one does evil toward another, he has decreased the level of happiness for that person and there is a sense of deservedness of an equal evil I return. Out of this sense of equivalent exchange comes a sense of justice. There is no justice for groups, but only for individuals. If we speak of justice for a group, we actually mean justice for a group of individuals. Complete justice would mean that everyone is the same. Because injustice is conceptually displeasing, it causes a measure of unhappiness. Thus while morality supercedes justice, justice does play a factor in morality and often the one contributes to the other. Out of justice emerges a sense of individual rights, which are simply all powers that individuals have that do not infringe on the powers of others unjustly or cause undeserved suffering.
If one individual were made happy while another was left unhappy, the situation would be unjust, yet still more moral than before, since the general level of happiness has increased. If both were made happy to an amount equivalent to the increase in happiness of the previous case (factoring in added unhappiness of the latter individual) with the happiness divided equally among them, then the situation would be equally moral as the previous case and also just.
When we discuss hypothetical ethical dilemmas, we imagine ourselves in the situation of the person in the dilemma. If we judge that it would cause unhappiness or pain to us, we view it as immoral. Instances of morality are the conceptual counterpart to aesthetic beauty, as both cause pleasure on one level or another.
Pride is a positive assessment of oneself (or sometimes of another). The word pride is used in both a negative and positive sense. There are actually three varieties. Just pride is a positive assessment based on earned merit (or desert) and is morally acceptable unless it is taken to the point where others are meant to feel inferior. Justified pride is a positive assessment based on what might be called accidental virtues, that is, positive qualities about a person that he happened to have due to pure good fortune, such as good looks or talents. This sort of pride is morally neutral because it simply describes reality. Of course it becomes immoral when it is used improperly to make others feel inferior. Finally, there is unjust pride, which is positive assessment that is undeserved, is based on false virtues, or has no real merit. This is almost always immoral, as it is a judgment that is not based on true desert, and is thus unjust and leads to unhappiness in others. The concept of such an incorrect judgment is abhorrent.

The Functions of Film

All art is communication and it requires an audience. Communication is the sharing or provoking of ideas from one individual to another (or even the same individual). Communication is an experience, and therefore all forms of art are experiences. Some experiences of art carry more ‘experiential’ weight than others. For example, hearing music being performed live is typically a more powerful experience than listening to recorded music. Actual proximity to a work of art is more powerful than seeing a photographic reproduction of it. Live actors have more ‘stage presence’ than filmed drama. Therefore cinema, when it is acting as dramatic narrative, typically has less ‘presence’ than theatre. It is the job of the filmmakers to overcome this initial shortcoming and engross the audience. Even so, theatrical works, when presented on stage in the normal fashion (as opposed to some of the possibilities of street theatre, unscripted drama, or breaking of the proscenium barrier), still presence the audience with an experience somewhat removed from that of a ‘true’ experience occurring in real life, as the audience is aware that this is a fictional play. It is however, also the mark of good theatre that the audience forgets this separation from reality and is completely engrossed in the story.
Despite cinema’s not-insurmountable shortcomings in comparison with theatre, film can be used in more ways than simply dramatic narrative. It can also function as a sort of art installation piece wherein the film “crosses the proscenium” by involving the audience in some manner. In Sharon Lockhart’s Teatro Amazonas the audience watches an extended shot of another audience (sitting in an opera house in Brazil) while vocal music plays. The film is as much or more about the live audience’s reaction when confronted with a filmed audience as it is a film of an audience in Brazil. Film need not be restricted to a theatre. Projectors showing films can be part of an art installation (such as some of the work of Andy Warhol) and work in conjunction with the viewing space or other pieces of art to form an entire environment in which the viewer can experience everything around him.
Film can also function as a visual/aural art piece “framed” by the screen. This is in essence like viewing a painting, but with moving and changing images with sound. It may consist of pure colors and shapes and/or coherent pieces of narrative. In the latter case, the screen gives the viewer the implied notion that he is looking through a window and that beyond its edges the there is a greater expanse of space just out of view. It also differs from a static painting or other framed image in that there is no object to look at, only ephemeral projections of flat images on a screen. Therefore the viewer is another level removed from the pure experience of the images he sees. Also unlike a painting the viewer cannot look closer or linger on part of the image as the succession of images is not within his control.
Film can act as a record of actual events. This does not necessarily mean that a documentary film as a whole will function in this manner. Most documentary films have voice-over narration, utilize editing, include animation or diagrams and are structured to explain or argue a point. In this case, its function is more like the sort of narrative that will be discussed later. Raw footage captured at the time of an event is a historical record in a more pure form. Within the ‘frame’ of the screen (with its implied environment just out of the camera’s view) the view sees a moving visual (and sometimes also aural) approximation of the actual event taking place. It is an approximation as it is in reality a series of still images shown in quick succession so that it appears to the human eye as a moving image.
Finally, film can act as a narrative in other ways besides merely dramatic. A narrative can be told through a progression of still or moving images, sounds, words, movements, colors, and scenes. It need not always require actual actors. One image followed by another will be connected by the viewer’s mind to form an idea greater than simply a single image. This narrative may be a complex “storyline” or simply a series of ideas. Such a narrative is more literary than dramatic in that it functions through description, dialogue, metaphor, imagery, as well as action, as in a fictional story, or even a poem. Many an art film is in many respects a visual poem. Written or spoken poems rely on imagery, sounds, rhythm, and even visual shapes (such as with many e.e. cummings works), as do many films. A documentary film also functions as a narrative. This kind of documentary can be likened to reading a newspaper article or editorial (as opposed to a novel), which is based on actual events, but presented in a certain manner by its author.
So far film in particular has been discussed, but of course these ideas can also apply to other analog or digital video as well. In addition, it must be said that the experiences of theatre, film, visual arts, and music carry with them carry with them distracting elements inherent in the medium and in the world around us—other people talking in the theatre, other viewers obstructing our view of a painting. In addition they often require the viewer (or listener) to become adjusted to the medium before they can experience the work at its full potential. In much the same manner as putting glasses on for the first time, the viewer must mentally adjust his perception. With cinema, he soon learns to ignore the blackness around the screen as one learns to ignore the frames of one’s glasses. A theatergoer soon does not even notice the fact that the sets are laid before him in an unrealistic manner (the forth wall is missing). As we are now in the age of internet, digital video, and virtual reality, this discussion of the functions of film may not even be exhaustive, as filmmakers are still exploring the limitations and possibilities of this medium. Many a film theorist have speculated at length about ‘total cinema’, in which we will perceive not just visual images on a screen with accompanying sound, but in which all of our senses are involved and the screen covers our entire field of vision. We may not just be a spectator, but also a participant, altering the storyline with our own decisions. Such technology is largely a reality today, but has not become as widely utilized as traditional cinema. I will concur with those other theorists and critics in that this will be the most complete ‘experience’ possible shy of the real thing. I will add however, that artistic expression can be powerful and effective in any medium, only limited by the effort, skill, and imagination of the artist.