Promoting quiet recreation in Wisconsin.
Opposing the coming attempts to sell off Wisconsin's natural heritage.
Fighting denial about climate change. When are we hitting the streets?


Thursday, July 24, 2008

A hierarchy of noise: the short course

I have been working in Northern Wisconsin this week, where it is relatively quiet.  Of course, there are exceptions to the quiet.    That reminded me of a project I wanted to undertake: Making a study of the ethics of  human-made sound.     I would start with an Aristotelian gathering and classifying different kinds of sounds.   (What types of human-made sound are there? When is a sound a noise? )  Then I would try to examine human-made sound through the lenses of  ethical ideas.  
   But I get ahead of myself.  For now, just the short version: Let's say you are on a small, quiet,  northern Wisconsin lake and you are wondering whether your radio is a sound or a noise to other people enjoying the lake:  Its a noise.  

And if you are wondering if you have an equal ethical warrant to make that noise as another person has to be free of it: No,  you don't.


No comments: