Thinking About Pornography in a Different Way
In his book Penser la pornographie (PUF, 2003), philosopher Ruwen Ogien (1947–2017) rejects the arguments of pornophobes, both conservative and progressive alike. While some consider pornography as a threat to the nuclear family and the traditional values it represents, others criticize the degradation of human relationships that pornography generates. Ogien’s objections are based on a minimalist ethics whose principles include that of not doing harm to others. According to the philosopher, we should regard the production or consumption of pornographic images as innocuous as long as they don’t harm anyone. In his discussion, he closely examines the perspectives of groups who oppose pornography based on an essential concept of the sexual benefit supposedly inherent in human nature. Yet this concept condemns the rights of adults to decide what to do with their own lives. As an essay of applied ethics, Penser la pornographie joins the ongoing debate between those who wish to suppress pornography in the name of human dignity and those who, while acknowledging its existence, advocate for tolerance of individual tastes and desires in accordance with the rules of minimalist ethics.
Four years later, Ogien published La liberté d’offenser: Le sexe, l’art et la morale (La Musardine, 2007), and this time, he took on censorship in the field of artistic expression. He defends the freedom to exhibit works that can shock and ofiend viewers, as long as the works do no harm to anyone. Admittedly, artworks depicting images deemed obscene can be found to be in bad
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