‘I Can’t Do It by Myself!’: Social Ethics and Pornography

Abstract

Ronald Dworkin is very much a good example of the liberal, legal theorist who finds himself situated in late modern capitalism. Yet, he is a thinker who exists in a different world: prior to the mass proliferation of the media and the advent of the internet. He reduces the question of pornography to the eminently sensible political question of how far should people have a right to do the wrong thing. Now, we know whenever anyone poses such a question, we shall find ourselves forced to agree sooner or later to some sort of liberty or harm principle whereby the only justification for the sanction of the liberty of the individual is if that individual’s actions will result in harm to others (not to himself or herself). Dworkin, of course, will position his rights theory at the border of the private-public distinction: the only way pornography can be prohibited is if it violates the rights of agents. And, of course, the prohibition of pornography violates the rights of producers and consumers of pornography, thus we are offered this strategy: ‘… if pornography makes the community worse off, even in the very long run, it is nevertheless wrong to censor or restrict it because this violates the individual moral or political rights of citizens who resent the censorship’ (Dworkin, 1981: 178).