Seeing What We Are Supporting: Why the Media Should Show Us the Graphic Horrors of Our Wars

The late philosopher Derek Parfit was reportedly moved to tears by philosophical conversations about the abstract concept of suffering. Most of us, however, are not so morally sensitive. We struggle to sympathize with suffering that we do not see—like the unfathomable suffering experienced by the foreign victims of our wars. To better understand the moral costs of the wars being waged in our name, I argue that we should seek out—and newspapers and social media platforms should show us—graphic documentary photographs of the people killed and maimed with our taxpayer money. We have a collective epistemic responsibility, I contend, to see what it is that we are supporting.  

For more information, contact Tena Thau at t.thau@ucl.ac.uk.