Ethics of the Eerie: Guilford’s Marius Pascale Featured in USA Today

This time of yr Halloween crowds will go to haunted homes, ghost excursions and spooky points of interest. Sometimes these locations are pure fantasy. Other instances they’re the websites of real-life atrocities or accidents like Chernobyl or Auschwitz or the 9/11 Memorial in New York. 

This week, USA Today turned to Guilford College Visiting Professor of Philosophy Marius Pascale for perception into why persons are drawn to the darker corners of historical past — and what moral questions include that curiosity.

In a nationwide story revealed this week, “Is ‘Dark Tourism’ Ethical? Haunted Attractions Reconsider Their Past,” Marius provides a nuanced tackle how locations like Eastern State Penitentiary and the Lizzie Borden House are navigating the strain between leisure and schooling.

“‘Dark tourism’ may present some moral quandaries, but it’s not inherently wrong,” Marius tells USA Today. “It can help people process their questions around death and sadness. It’s not innately bad — but neither do we want to sign off on all of it and say it’s all fine, too.”

A professor of utilized {and professional} ethics, Marius research how ethical psychology shapes our fascination with loss of life and tragedy. His perspective — that curiosity about darkness may also spark empathy and understanding — echoes Guilford’s liberal arts and Quaker values, which emphasize reflection, discernment and respect for human expertise.

For Marius, that work goes past classroom idea. His personal travels embody what he calls ethically acceptable locations — and a few that cross the road. “I’m no stranger to historical ghost tours and tours of supposedly haunted locations or areas that have seen historic upheaval. But there are things that I would personally draw the line on that I do think are ethically questionable destinations,” he says.

When he was invited to tour a focus camp whereas attending a convention in Germany, he declined. “Even then, delineating what those limits are is a very … it’s a field where a lot of people want guidelines,” he says. “But it is an area where there hasn’t really been exhaustive, formal academic development, particularly in the ethics world. You’ll see some people talking about it from a business perspective, maybe a sociological perspective, but it doesn’t get a lot of emphasis in philosophy and professional ethics.”

He attributes that hole, partly, to developments inside philosophy itself. “Philosophy is very much — you wouldn’t think this is the case from such an ancient discipline — but it is very strongly guided by trends,” Marius says. “Right now the ethics world is concerned with political questions, questions of the use and restrictions on AI, economic things, international [issues]. So a lot of times these big sea change things come up, and that kind of monopolizes the discipline focus.”

Still, the subject has discovered a pure residence at Guilford.His class Death, Horror, and Morbid Fascination offers, partly, with darkish tourism. Marius says it’s probably the most fashionable lessons he teaches.

For Marius, the rising curiosity amongst college students speaks to one thing deeper — a curiosity concerning the ethical complexity of human fascination with loss of life and the unknown. “It is a very popular class,” he says. “I already have students now asking me about availability next year for that class.”