With Rick Santorum’s recent announcement that he would target porn distribution if elected president, many have lashed out against him, or simply written his claim off as confirmation that he is very out of touch with reality. Most point to the First Amendment to justify a “right to pornography,” but in fact, the issue is not so simple. We should seriously consider what we are sacrificing by keeping porn legal, let alone allowing it to be so easily accessed by everyone, including children.
For centuries, theorists of public morality have pointed out that seemingly private acts of vice, when multiplied across a society, can seriously endanger important public interests. An example of this is the use of narcotics or hallucinogens. While isolated use of drugs by a single individual in society may affect the common good very little, if at all, a widespread epidemic of drug use can damage important public interests in a myriad of ways. By no means does this give us an easy answer to whether drugs should be legal, but it does weaken the claim that private drug use should never be subject to public intrusion.
The same can be said of pornography. Even Ronald Dworkin, who believes in a moral right to pornography, admits that there are serious public interests at stake: Legalized porn would “sharply limit the ability of individuals consciously and reflectively to influence the conditions of their own and their children’s development. It would limit their ability to bring about the cultural structure they think best, a structure in which sexual experience generally has dignity and beauty, without which their own and their families’ sexual experience are likely to have these qualities in less degree.”
Robert George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, points out that Dworkin never manages to overcome the magnitude of the public interests that he himself points out. He points out that the argument for limiting porn is not simply to protect people from shock or offense. Rather, it is something much more substantial: “the interest of every member of the community in the quality of the cultural structure that will, to a large extent, shape their experiences, their quality of life, and the choices effectively available to them and their children in a domain of human affairs marked by profound moral significance.” Therefore, it is not as simple as drawing a line between the rights of individuals and the majority’s dislike of smut.
Pornography, a $13 billion industry, is an epidemic in the U.S. today. One survey shows that one in ten Americans admit addiction to online pornography. Raquel Welch, one of America’s most revered sex symbols, recently said in an interview that she believes the “era of porn” has “annihilated” men. “Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted, you know it’s gotta be pretty bad,” she said.
While public interests have certainly already been affected by the culture of porn, the issue is, mostly, a matter of justice to children. Widespread availability and acceptance of porn contributes to a society in which sex is de-personalized, and thus degraded. In such an environment, even the best parents will have difficulty teaching their children to view themselves and others as people rather than as objects of sexual desire. These children will eventually be much less capable of having healthy sex lives in their families, and the cycle will continue through generations until decisive action is taken to change the cultural structure. This scenario could have disastrous effects on society. It could already be happening, and if so, we many not see the full impact for another twenty years or so.
There are very real and important public interests at stake in the issue of pornography. While it is certainly not an easy decision, we should at least acknowledge what we are sacrificing by keeping porn legal: a culture in which sex is seen as something that has dignity and beauty, and therefore the ability of children raised in that society to have families that experience those qualities. A simple reliance on First Amendment right to "freedom of expression" is not enough to justify pornography in light of the public interests imperiled by porn. If judges are to impose a decision against the public interests at stake with porn, they should provide a legal and moral justification for doing so.
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