Morality

SIGNIFICANCE: The perceived immorality of a work is often the basis of its being censored; what is immoral and whether an immoral work should be censored are subjects of debate

DEFINITION: The rightness of an act

The terms “moral” and “immoral” apply to acts, especially to the judgment received from tradition regarding certain acts, behavior, and (in some cases) thoughts and intentions as wrong. Moral wrong means that individuals who violate relevant norms should feel guilt, be reprimanded, and, in many cases, be punished by religious or secular law.

What tradition declares right and wrong, however, has ever been open to challenge. Thus, a distinction must be made between beliefs by some—even a majority—that certain acts are morally wrong and what nontraditionalists may believe. To many individuals, what is “moral” or “immoral” is clear. Usually, though not necessarily, this certitude is grounded upon religious teachings. “Morality” is the basis that leaders of various groups cite in seeking to censor what others seek to see or hear.

Such judgments are not static. As premodern societies gave way to modern ones, the status of traditional morality came into question. From bloody religious conflict arose religious toleration among groups that previously had denied each other’s right to worship freely. In time, secular forces gained influence, reducing the authority of traditional norms, as industrialization revolutionized society.

By the late nineteenth century, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had attempted a thorough undermining of Judeo-Christian morality in The Genealogy of Morals (1887) and other works. Moral skepticism later began creeping into universities and some quarters of society at large. The assurance that God has decreed what is right and wrong and has revealed the law in sacred writings broke down among many social groups.

In the United States, by the late twentieth century, the constitutional principle separating church and state limited the areas of law in which religious morality could be enforced. Concurrently, however, many religious believers and others demanded that law enforce traditional, especially sexual, morality. These debates continued at varying levels of intensity in the US well into the twenty-first century; issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and the rights of transgender people generated strong pushback from conservatives who believed the government had a moral obligation to enforce what they considered to be traditional Christian values.

Moral Relativism and Absolutism

Problems for democracy arise when consensus over right and wrong breaks down among substantial numbers of people. Some, perhaps a majority, may demand that traditional norms be legally enforced, although to do so is often contrary to principles of liberal democracy. When dissenters are few, their interests or wishes can be ignored, and what Alexis de Tocqueville called the “tyranny of the majority” occurs. As active dissent increases in numbers and influence, conflict is heightened.

Conflict is heightened during periods of rapid transition in moral standards, when traditional standards break down, and when standards of any kind appear to be absent among significant parts of society. When such conditions occur, traditionalists demand adherence to rigidly applied, unchanging—“absolute”—standards. The appeal to absolutism typically does not go unchallenged. In classical Athens the sophist Protagoras proclaimed, famously, the relativist dictum “man is the measure of all things.” Modern critics point out that many acts or practices considered wrong in one culture are viewed differently in others. Moral absolutism and complete relativism are only the extremes of a continuum of belief, not either-or choices.

One of the strengths of the relativist argument is that cultures differ in their perceptions of right and wrong; one of the strengths of the absolutist argument is that almost all cultures condemn such acts as murder, adultery, theft, and lying. Cultures differ, however, on a number of other moral issues, such as sexual norms. For example, throughout history, different cultures have developed different standards regarding how the human body should be pictorially or cinematically displayed. In some places, for example, the exposure of women’s ankles is considered immoral. In India, cinematic depiction of kissing is considered immoral. Within cultures, even a relatively brief passage of time can mean dramatic changes in norms. Thus, in the 1960s, comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested in San Francisco for uttering words commonplace in entertainment media in the US only a few decades later. In the West, the understanding of what is proper for women to wear at the beach changed dramatically from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end.

Classical Liberalism and Democracy

Where to draw the line for acceptable expression is deeply controversial. Famously, John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty (1859) that the “only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” But others have disagreed with this statement, and others have argued that, for example, a man’s looking at pornography injures women generally, and that pornography should—even against his will—be banned.

Reasonable people do not disagree that such acts as murder, rape, theft, assault, and the like must be outlawed. All are almost universally considered immoral as well as harmful to society. But in other cases, there may be no agreement about whether “harm” occurs, for example, when pornography is viewed by consenting adults. Even where some intangible harm may be thought to occur, such as viewing certain bizarre sexual practices, those opposing censorship argue that consenting adults should be allowed to please themselves without interference by the state.

Societies characterized by social pluralism such as the United States have special difficulty defining the criteria of public acceptability when standards vary so widely. Political speech receives wide First Amendment protection by American courts, especially after New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) and New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)—the Pentagon Papers case. However, obscenity and pornography are notoriously more difficult to define and have long been subjects of legal controversy.

Obscenity, Pornography, and Morality

The US Supreme Court has struggled for decades to deal with obscenity issues. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the Court laid down the influential rationale that certain forms of expression, such as obscenity, are unprotected because they play no “essential part” in the exposition of ideas and the search for truth and because any benefit from them is “clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

Later cases made alterations to this formula. In Roth v. US (1957), Justice William J. Brennan said that while the First Amendment does not protect obscenity, it does protect “ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance.” Miller v. California (1973) included application of “contemporary community standards” by the average person to determine if the expression is “patently offensive,” “appeals predominantly to the prurient interest,” and, “taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Later refinements only underlined the fact that the United States has been profoundly divided on whether and to what extent law should enforce morality in the absence of clear, substantial harm to individuals.

Besides traditionalist hostility to certain forms of erotica, some feminists have advocated censoring pornography on the grounds that it is sexist and misogynistic, with this debate reaching a heated level in the 1990s and early 2000s. Others have sought to censor pornography over concerns that children could be exposed to it, or because they view it as indecent or sinful. Advocates of censoring pornography pointed to a number of factors, including studies claiming that, under laboratory conditions, some pornography induces some men to excuse violence against women. Critics have claimed there are flaws in these studies, which, they argue, are invalid or inconclusive. To opponents of blanket censorship, the relationship of the individual to erotica is comparable to the relationships of the normal drinker to alcohol and of the alcoholic to alcohol; they argue that detriment to some is insufficient reason to outlaw something for all.

Age and Moral Censorship

A central issue in debate over the enforcement of morals in liberal democracy is state paternalism. The paternal state acts as parent of citizens, not only protecting them from harm, as is the duty of all states, but also from harming themselves.

The classical doctrine of liberalism in the name of liberty denies the legitimacy of the latter form of paternalism, that of protecting citizens from themselves. Normal adults—those not suffering from some physical or mental aberration that limits their use of reason—should be free to choose for themselves. Anti-liberal leaders, however, often adhere to the view that “freedom for moral error” is illegitimate. That is, no one should be free to practice what is morally wrong.

Those who take this view typically claim to know what is morally wrong and wish to apply the sanction of the law to stop it. Justification of censorship does not require proof that the material to be censored produces substantial harm to the person; once the immorality is shown, only practicality of enforcement stands in the way of legitimizing censorship.

In the United States after the 1950s, increasingly liberal court rulings allowed adults freedom to view materials previously outlawed as immoral. Although this liberty is subject to the community standards test, adults are free to move to—or visit—communities with standards conforming to their own. While this trend was complicated by frequent challenges to this liberalization, such as attempts by a number of states in the early 2020s to enact laws intended to limit drag performances, US adults in the twenty-first century generally enjoyed greater freedoms in this area than at any other point in US history.

The legal and moral situation with minors is different, however. The degree of censorship that the courts tolerate varies with age. Thus, film ratings determine the age at which minors unescorted by adults may enter cinemas. School administrations may bar some forms of minors’ self-expression, requiring uniforms, censoring student newspapers, and elsewhere regulating school life. Because minors are in varying degrees immature, they are not considered in full possession of their rational faculties and therefore, it is often argued, can rightly be controlled by parents or those acting as parents.

Different cases illustrate the dilemmas and controversies faced by liberal democracy, where at once certain traditional norms are rejected by substantial minorities and are supported by many others. As the United States as a whole becomes more secularized, many conservative voices have decried the moral decline of the United States. Liberal democracies leave to the individual a range of decisions regarding the morality or immorality of what they see or read, allowing them to judge for themselves what they should do; but whether this is the right policy in particular cases and what limits, if any, should be set to individual discretion are controversial and involve fundamental political principles.

Bibliography

Dean, Tim. "Ethics Explainer: Moral Relativism." The Ethics Centre, 2 Feb. 2021, ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-moral-relativism/. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

"Moral Absolutism." Ethics Unwrapped, University of Texas, ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/moral-absolutism. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Papadaki, Lena. Review of Debating Pornography, by Andrew Altman and Lori Watson. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 21 Sept. 2019, ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/debating-pornography/. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Tomasello, Michael. "The Origins of Human Morality." Scientific American, 1 Sept. 2018, www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origins-of-human-morality/. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.