What Aristotle would have made of Brooks Newmark’s selfies
News that the soon-to-be-ex-Tory MP Brooks Newmark has sent pictures of his genitals to a second (presumed female) contact has centred yawningly around ‘rights’, ‘exploitation’, ‘power’ and so on. Aristotle can take us back to basics. The ancients did not do ‘rights’ anyway: they did the law. If there was no law against what you were doing, go ahead. But that did not mean that your action was therefore praiseworthy. How, then, should a man, especially one in the public eye, judge his actions? Aristotle suggested there were four main criteria: whether the actions in question were legal, advantageous, honourable and appropriately motivated. That Newmark’s action was ‘legal’ is undeniable. That
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