Abstract
Vanity fairs are the most successful market form of the 21st century economy. They represent the market form that the industrial base of knowledge society and the business models of the most prosperous firms of the present-day economy rely on. The success, however, comes at a price. Competitions for attention, incomparable in mobilizing creative and cognitive efforts, are incomparable also in exposing the tender flesh of our innermost selves to the cunning of business acumen .
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Notes
- 1.
The classic reference to this ordinal utility theory, as it is called, is de Graaff (1957).
- 2.
The paradigm case of complementarity is the wave-particle dualism in quantum theory . Wave and particle are incompatible properties of an entity, but both are necessary for an encompassing description of quantum objects. Complementarity, thus conceived, was introduced by Nils Bohr , who in turn was inspired by a psychological notion thereof that ultimately goes back to William James . On the re-introduction of the concept of complementarity into psychology see Wang and Busemeyer (2015).
- 3.
cf. Franck 2010
- 4.
For a scientific account of this basic ambivalence of the human condition see Kauffman (2008).
- 5.
This is not to say, however, that it is hard to show that deliberate agnosticism has a dehumanizing effect. The effect is demonstrated brutally by a worldview pervasive in our science -minded civilization. The view consists in the seemingly innocent definition of nature as that which natural science describes. The identification of nature with the scope of natural science is known as naturalism . Since sentience has no place in the scope of natural science, this definition of nature amounts to banning sentient nature from nature proper. Deliberative ignorance of sentience may seem arguable on the grounds of the inaccessibility of sentience by empirical method. Basic research and pure theory alike deserve to be shielded against issues they are not equipped to answer. As long as basic research serves exclusively cognitive interests, it arguably can refuse social responsibility for its outcome. Things change when the outcome of knowledge production transcends the province of pure theory. As soon as naturalism turns into a quasi-official worldview of technologically advanced societies, denial of sentient nature means to give the blessing to ruthless brutality toward animals on industrial scale. How dehumanizing deliberate ignorance can be is demonstrated by the cruelty to animals inherent in intensive farming and the unscrupulous processing of sensitive tissue in the meat and fish industries. Dismissing natural spirituality is much more than just shortsightedness. It is a serious threat to the nature we are part of ourselves. Loosening the blindfold is an ethical command far exceeding the domain of vanity fairs.
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Franck, G. (2020). VII Moral Elegance: An Ethics Tailored to Vanity Fairs?. In: Vanity Fairs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41532-7_8
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