OPPapers.com

Argument Pornography

Mark Wicclair argues that we should be very wary about the censorship of pornography,
even if pornography, as Helen Longino defines it, exists. In order to fully understand
Wicclair's reason for being wary of the censorship of pornography it is important that we
use Helen Longino's definition of pornography. Helen Longino defines pornography as
"[the] verbal or pictoral explicit representations of sexual behavior that...have as a
distinguishing characteristic ‘the degrading and demeaning portrayal of the role
and status of the human female...as a mere sexual object to be exploited and
manipulated sexually (p.43)."
Helen Longino's definition can be used as the basis of numerous arguments dealing with
pornography. In this paper, I will deal with only one controversial aspect of
pornography. That aspect is the censorship of pornography. Although Wicclair raises
several reasons for being wary of the censorship of pornography, I will discuss only two
of those objections in this paper.
The first reason Wicclair gives for his claim that we should be wary about the
censorship of pornography is that negative side effects are likely to occur if pornography
is censored. Wicclair focuses his argument on the slippery slope effect, which he claims
is a negative effect of the censoring of pornography. In this context, the slippery slope
effect is defined by Wicclair as "...a serious risk that once any censorship is allowed, the
power to censor will, over time, expand in unintended and undesirable directions
(p.382)." This definition along with "...the fact that it is extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to formulate unequivocal and unambiguous criteria for censorship (Wicclair
p. 382)," Wicclair makes the conclusion that "[t]he slippery slope effect will
eventually...suppress the rights, interests, and values of others (p.382)."
I agree with Wicclair's first reason for his argument against the censorship of
pornography. I also...