Free Speech and Pornography

Free Speech & Pornography

• John Stuart Mill defends absolute freedom of opinion and expression.

• Silencing an opinion is wrong because it robs society of the truth or a clearer understanding of it, even if the opinion is false.

• Four reasons why free expression must be protected:

  • The silenced opinion might be true.
  • Even if false, it may contain part of the truth.
  • Truth can only be maintained through open conflict with error.
  • Without challenge, even true beliefs become dogma.

• Free expression is essential for individual and social progress.

• Key concepts include the marketplace of ideas, intellectual humility, and individual autonomy.

• Criticisms: Free speech can cause harm, and Mill’s harm principle is ambiguous in application.

• The principle may not apply equally in the modern digital/public context.

• Ronald Dworkin defends the right to publish and consume pornography on liberal grounds.

• Censorship based on moral disgust or offense is challenged.

• Censorship threatens liberal principles of autonomy and equality.

• Feminist critiques are addressed by arguing that censorship undermines women’s agency and can be paternalistic.

• Key concepts: liberalism and autonomy, viewpoint neutrality.

• Free speech protections should apply even for unpopular or offensive content.

• Feminist critiques (e.g., MacKinnon) says pornography promotes gender inequality and harms women.

• Dworkin responds that restricting freedom to protect others' moral sensibilities is dangerous.

• Critics say pornography objectifies women and contributes to a culture of harm.

• The debate centers on the harm principle vs. freedom of expression.

Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

• James Rachels challenges the American Medical Association’s (AMA) distinction between active and passive euthanasia.

• There is no moral difference between killing and letting die.

• Passive euthanasia is more painful and inhumane than active euthanasia.

• Omissions can be just as morally significant as actions.

• Key concepts include the moral equivalence of action and omission and a utilitarian concern for reducing suffering.

• There is a critique of medical ethics’ inconsistency.

• Smith & Jones thought experiment: one kills a child, the other lets a child die; both are morally equivalent.

• Daniel Callahan opposes euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

• He warns against equating the right to die with absolute self-determination.

• Euthanasia is seen as a social rather than an individual act.

• Euthanasia changes the role of medicine, from healing to killing.

• Concerned about a slippery slope: abuse, coercion, and normalizing death.

• There is a distinction between killing and letting die.

• Medical professionals should not be executioners.

• Legal euthanasia risks undermining respect for life and medical integrity.

• Self-determination must be limited to prevent harm to others.

Abortion

• J.T. Noonan Jr. argues against abortion from a Catholic natural law tradition.

• The moral status of the fetus begins at conception.

• There is a high likelihood of becoming a full person once conceived.

• Human DNA at conception implies full humanity.

• Key concepts: conservative/pro-life view.

• The potentiality principle states that potential life = actual moral status.

• Criticisms: it ignores maternal rights and bodily autonomy.

• Overemphasis on biological arguments, de-emphasizing ethical complexity.

• Judith Jarvis Thomson defends abortion as morally permissible in many cases and accepts that a fetus is a person.

• Uses analogies (Violinist case, People Seeds, etc.) to show bodily autonomy trumps fetal right to life.

• There is a difference between being a Good Samaritan and a Minimally Decent Samaritan.

• Pregnancy by rape or failed contraception does not obligate continued gestation.

• Key concepts: bodily autonomy and the principle that the right to life ≠ right to use someone else’s body.

• Abortion is morally permissible under various circumstances.

• Critics argue her analogies are too abstract or not fully analogous to pregnancy.

• Mary Anne Warren states that personhood requires certain traits.

  • Consciousness
  • Reasoning
  • Self-motivated activity
  • Communication
  • Self-awareness

• The fetus is not a person in the moral sense, so abortion is permissible.

• There is a distinction between a biological human and a moral person.

• Key concepts: moral personhood and criteria-based moral status.

• Criticisms: a potential slippery slope, which could justify infanticide.

• Are the criteria arbitrary or exclusionary?

• Don Marquis argues that abortion is wrong because it deprives the fetus of a "future like ours."

• Killing is wrong because it robs one of future experiences.

• Avoids debates over personhood, DNA, or rights.

• Key concepts: future-like-ours argument and the deprivation account of the wrongness of killing.

• It doesn’t account for rape, maternal health, or autonomy, according to critics.

• Can the fetus be deprived of something it was never conscious of?