Examining the Ethical Issues Presented by Katharine McPhee's Leaked Nudes
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Any time the public is handed a new wave of Fappening-like celebrity nude leaks, it presents an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, I consider myself a champion of individual freedom. A small “l” libertarian who respects a person’s right to their private property. I can’t have thrown myself on the grenade of Tom Brady’s right to not turn his phone over to Roger Goodell and then, in good conscience, celebrate someone’s phone being hacked just to satisfy my own desire to see Katharine McPhee naked. Besides, it’s a crime. Identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year.
On the other hand, I’m a manchild. A self-absorbed, narcissistic carbon blob hardwired through millions of years of evolution to want to see people we are sexually attracted to naked. Denying that basic fact of physiology is like trying to deny we need air, food and alcohol. And therein lies my moral crisis on this one. Do I find the McPhee pictures and betray my core beliefs? Or try to avoid them and live the life of a science denier?
Ultimately these things, like all ethical dilemmas, have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. A sort of moral relativism in which was in right in one leaked celebrity nude is wrong in another. In the case of Katherine McPhee, I think it would be immoral NOT to find them. She and I have a history, going back to the ancient days of Barstool when she was on American Idol and the nation caught onto the fact that every song she did she sang directly to me. She even had me watching Smash, which was a terrible, watered down Glee with adult performers. And while I don’t watch Scorpion, it’s only because every time the show runners find a way to put her in wet clothes or wear almost nothing, it’s all over the Internet anyway. So I save a lot of time not watching a crap show.
And that’s the bottom line. It’s wrong to look at a celebrity’s hacked photos. But that wrong is canceled out when you have a history with said celebrity. Then it’s basically an obligation to yourself. Thus endth the sermon. Go in peace.
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