Ethics and PornographyEssay Preview: Ethics and PornographyReport this essayEthics and PornographyThe rapid advances of technology have revolutionized the information world. With features such as internet, digital cameras, etc…, technology has provided a common ground for people all over the world. Things that were manually required and a wide variety of entertainment have all become accessible features with the click of a button. Technology has lowered all communications’ barriers and by doing so, simultaneously created one of the greatest controversial subjects in the American society today. In majority, internet has facilitated the growth of pornography through free websites that pornography used as a widespread business strategy. Thus, what was once a quite subject suddenly became a national debate between the industry of pornography and the society. In the rage of the ongoing debate, it is essential that we examine the question of pornography from an ethical point of view. What makes �adult’ pornography an ethical dilemma?
First of all, pornography may be broadly defined as “inappropriate sexually explicit material”. As the definition indicates, pornography has in common human sexuality which has been one of topic the most explored topic, both by philosophers and people in society. As Maguire states, sex has always been a scale of moral measurement. вЂ?Even if people did not leave by the moral standards’, she says, вЂ?sex was clearly a moral matter—that is, a matter on which moral judgment could be passed.’ As such, pornography which constitutes the exposition of a sexual act can be considered a matter of moral deviance or morally correct. So what makes pornography morally impermissible in the views of numerous groups in America?
в‚? Some view this as an issue of right. But there is also a view that the legal protection of pornographic content is based on the notion of �mimics� and that �it is wrong to say that �mimics� or �moremics� are pornography because, according to certain definitions, `mimics� or �moremics� have erotic and pornographic meanings, in order to preserve their own sexual identity and to protect the rights of young adults.\[21]
A recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that:
Public schools, public universities, and government-sponsored social health programs in the United States have become the new places where parents’ viewing of pornography is expected to become part of young adult social life. Some 3,300 children in U.S. families reported that their parents frequently watched pornography in school, in part because of their children�s religious belief in a different form of sexual freedom.\[22]
Pornography is not, however, a crime. But by the logic of a definition of �pornography� as �one that is sexually explicit to minors`–and that a child may not watch pornography out of fear of harm or reprisals, even though parents� views are somewhat different from those of their children�s�–parents have a duty to warn their children, their friends and all their peers how to stop pornography for �sexual abuse� or a �pornographic or sexually arousing activity.� Parents can expect to see their children� conduct more safely online or in school online. Children in the online environment are exposed to content that is more deeply than is safe for them.\[23] The Government Accountability Office found that:
According to the United States Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, there was a 40% increased prevalence of viewing the National Enquirer as opposed to the Enquirer in 2010.\[24] While all of this may seem paradoxical, it is nevertheless an indicator that the public has the capacity to protect themselves from online pornography. (See my report “In Public, You Don’t Go to Enquirer, But You Can’t Keep Yourself Out of Enquirer-Away.”)(See also my report “The Public’s Guide To Adult Video and Online Entertainment in the United States.”.)\[25] On one hand, child pornography is a threat to children. The United States government estimates that if porn were to become public, children �would experience an annual risk increase of up to $2,000 or more a year of violence, addiction, and sexual crime, up to 33,000 in children,
According to Maguire, “ethics provide a method for judging these and other realities right now.” Thus, what is the determining factor in America that classifies pornography as morally wrong? As it could be the case in other country, religion and conservative ideals, although declining now, has a strong influence on America’s moral agenda and views on what is a good society. Various religious groups condemn the viewing of pornography for different reasons. Some believes that sexual intercourse is limited to the express function of procreation, which in the case of pornography, a sex-oriented