An act of evil?
Full disclosure: I already wrote this post. I wrote a long essay recounting the eventful day I had - the penultimate of my residency - and did not click save fast enough. The page refreshed (Squarespace is so dodgy on a tablet, very volatile) and I lost it all.
I took 48 hours to fume about it, and now here I am, writing it all again (I just clicked save).
First, I wrote about the fascinating and distinguished Dr Simon Longstaff, founder of the Ethics Centre (yes, he is as wise and wordly as his name suggests) who came to speak to me in the Lab. Dr Longstaff is one of those people whose IQ and EQ are both remarkably high, so he is both deeply intelligent and deeply kind. He threw some real doozies at me - let's start with, can a scent be unethical unto itself?
I beg pardon?
If a plant, for example, was so utterly poisonous that it destroyed everything it came into contact with, is it (and its existence) unethical? No, I responded, its physiology is a response to its environment and a result of evolution - its use would be unethical, but not its existence. (I just clicked save). Two things, then, he said. One, what of humans who are responding to their environment? Can their toxicity not be excused?
They have a choice, I said. Even animals with high cognitive capacity can act unethically. Plants don't have a choice; they can't pre-empt, only respond.
So that leads me to the second, he said, intent. Does the intent determine the ethics? (I just clicked save, don't worry).
Yes, I said with utter certainty. Dr Longstaff neither agreed nor disagreed, but instead said, “In philosophy, intent is not linked to ethics. For example, if there is a huge storm and lightning strikes a tree, which then causes a branch to fall and damage your car, that would be considered an act of evil and thereby unethical.” (I just clicked save).
So, can a scent be unethical? Traditionally, I suppose it can. Dr Longstaff then posed the question: if an ethically-scented painting depicts an unethical event, is the artwork ethical or unethical? I pondered this. Mathematically, a positive and a negative equal a negative. Does an ethic plus an unethic equal an unethic?
(I just clicked save). I suppose, I responded, the unethical wins out. Even if you swapped the two - unethically scented, ethical depicition - the ethical standing is ruined by the presence of the unethical. In my head, the thought emerged: isn't all art unethical? But that was a conversation for another time.
I told him about the binary logic frameworks I made, and how scent can have ethics beyond its production, into its use and its industry. We talked about the power of scent, and of course I launched into the facinating psychology of scent, and how its direct path to the limbic system (amygdala and hypothalamus) bypasses the frontal cortex and therefore has no analysis applied until after the fact. I told him about how I was using scent to help someone with chronic pain, and to better a golf swing, and to help sleep arrive. Dr Longstaff threw another doozy at me: in the Napoleonic days, before anasthesia was routinely practiced, sound was used for painful procedures such as aputation. The patient was subjected to an overwhelming of the auditory senses; a cacophony was conducted as the saw went through flesh and bone. The point was to distract the brain with a barrage of stimuli so that it couldn't process the pain as easily. (I just clicked save, phew). Could scent be used in the same way, he wondered.
Difficult to test that one out, but something to think about… perhaps with less vivisection, it could be experimented upon.
Anyway, it was a truly stimulating and thought-provoking conversation that I wish could have gone for longer (I had another guest on the way). Dr Longstaff has a plethora of memories and life experience that he draws upon to apply examples to his questions. I hope to have some of his time again to further our discussion. And in the meantime, I hope he likes the painting…
(Save).
