Philosophy and the Community: How Does Pornography Affect the Community? (Essay Sample)

Philosophy and the Community
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Philosophy and the Community
Ethics can be described as the rules, written or unwritten, that are applied in order to ensure successful communication and prosperous coexistence can be established. Ethics are driven by morals, that is, the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Ethics are the driving force behind every decision that an individual makes as well as every action taken. Whether selecting the choice of words to address people, or ordering lunch at a restaurant, every decision has ethics as the driving force. The morals of a person and of a society as a whole are primarily dictated by nurture.
From that definition, it can be derived that social ethics are the philosophical principles that represent the experience of cultures. Social ethics, therefore, can be said to be a code of conduct that helps the society to govern that which is acceptable as well as that which is not acceptable, while providing a framework that ensures that every member of the particular community is well catered for. The welfare of the society is prioritized over individual interests, which helps in ensuring accountability.
Social justice is the largest form of justice, hence implying that it is the most important form of justice to most societies. Social justice primarily deals with fairness and equality between human beings. It is based on the universal principles that guide human beings in determining between right and wrong. This helps to keep a balance between different groups of people in a society. Social justice is a fundamental underlying principle for the successful and peaceful coexistence among the nations of the world. The fundamental principles of social justice can only be upheld when individuals promote gender equality, the rights of indigenous peoples and immigrants. Social justice is advanced when social barriers which people face owing to their gender, race, age, disability, culture, religion and ethnicity are eradicated. Social justice is, more often than not, influenced by the dominant government or religious group in the society.
Social justice is concerned with the assurance of protecting equal access to liberties, rights and opportunities while taking care of the disadvantaged members of the society. As such, something is determined to be just or unjust depending on whether it hinders or promotes equality of access to the opportunity for healthy living, human rights, access to civil liberties while allocating benefits fairly to the disadvantaged in the society. Social justice, therefore, is a social virtue that pertains to what one is due or owed as well as what one owes others. It is therefore expected that everyone agrees to treat others in a manner that is not selfish. Social justice, therefore, involves finding the balance between individual responsibilities to contribute to a just society and the joint responsibilities as a society.
Contemporary Social Issue of Focus-Pornography
Pornography is defined as the explicit portrayal of ant subject matter related to sex for sexual arousal purposes. It uses a variety of media, which includes magazines, books, sculpture, film, video games and the internet. Pornography involves portrayal of sexuality in a highly sensational manner, entirely focusing on the physical act. The purpose of pornography is to arouse intense and quick reactions of sexual arousal. In their book titled "A Billion Wicked Thoughts" Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam argue that emergence of social attitudes that are more tolerant of sexuality and obscenity has fostered the growth of pornography especially in the second half of the 20th century (Ogas & Gaddam, 2012). They argue that internet revolution and introduction of home video has created a global pornography industry that is worth billions of dollars yearly. Ogas and Gaddam deliver a snapshot of sexual tastes of a million users who are heavily influenced by a certain neurological process that they have not considered. This process is known as tolerance. This physiological process is common to brains on their way to addiction. In this case, users increasingly become numb to desensitized pleasure and seek more stimulation.
Therefore, everything men do regarding sexuality is hinged on maximization of their reproductive success. Therefore, pornography is one of the things that can enhance a man’s reproduction success because it excites sexual passions (Ogas & Gaddam, 2012). They conclude that modern liberal capitalism has freed individuals from plastic constraints of culture, conventional morality and religion, which has made it possible for people to behave in a manner that is close to the state of nature envisioned by an individual. Therefore, whatever human do when in a state of consumerism that is not trammelled is explained by natural selection optimizations and whatever they have been selected to do. That is why people log onto the internet anonymously to do what they have been selected to do.
All in all Ogas and Gaddam treat pornography in a different way, and offer a fresh perspective of this phenomenon. They assert that pornography has become a lifetime and so ubiquitous that it has become a natural part of human behaviour. They argue that there is no credible outside perspective to condemn or criticize it. There are some social factors that explain the nature and extent of pornography in the world. According to Ogas and Gaddam, young adult males, within the Y generation are more affected by pornography than any other age group. Generation Y has more access to computer and internet than any other generation. The perpetual presence of computer and internet in their lives from when they were young has conditioned members of this generation to view computer and internet as a primary and natural source of knowledge. The internet is their main teacher. They look for solutions on the internet. Between the age of 10 and 14, males become more sexually curious than females. Since the computer is their primary and natural teacher, they turn to it for answers. Young boys start masturbating under the influence of internet pornography. This continues into their twenties. Social changes in the society have contributed to prevalence of porn especially among members of generation Y (Ogas & Gaddam, 2012). Subconscious missions have now been replaced with screens, and this has been designated as acceptable behavior. For example, if there are three or four young people engaging in a conversation and one of them finds that they are getting dominated, the person takes out their smart phone and starts surfing the internet, instead of trying to get into the conversation. This means that internet has become part of their subconscious mission, which exposes them to pornography.
The findings in this book are consistent with the findings of Psychiatrist Norman Doidge who in his book titled "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science" argued that at first glance, pornography seems to be purely instinctual where sexually explicit pictures trigger instinctive responses, which are results of evolution through millions of years. However, if pornography was a mere instinctual response, it would remain unchanging. It would mean that the same triggers that excited our ancestors would excite us (Doidge, 2007). The fact is that pornography is a dynamic concept, according to Doidge. It is a progression of tastes that have been acquired. It is a phenomenon that has a plastic influence and it has the capacity to shape our brains. He argues that pornography is so influential on a human brain that it has the capacity to change the human patterns of sexual excitement. This in the long run affects their sexual potency and relationships. As people watch more pornography and get used to certain content, they crave for other tastes and harder content. This is what pushes pornographers to come up with even more content. Pornography operates like the hormone called dopamine. Internet pornography users have an overconsumption appeal that overpowers their innate satiety recovery window. Therefore, instead of waiting for their sexual appetite to appear, they just god to the internet to stimulate themselves. They use the internet to produce a multitude of neurochemicals which would be improbable to produce without stimulation by the internet. These neurochemicals that trigger sexual excitement become so valuable that porn becomes an integral part of the person.
Pornography is a social, moral and religious evil. This is because it affects the viewer negatively, regardless of the age, gender, creed and/or religious belief. Pornography feeds the desires of the eyes and of the flesh, which can never really be satisfied. As such, it leaves the viewer craving for more in order to achieve a sexual high; the same effect that drugs have on the users. The viewers are hence easily enslaved to their own craving, which then opens the door to other social evils, possibly rape. Pornography sites are known to routinely link subscribers to all imaginable forms of sexual perversion, which may include child porn, bestiality and homosexuality. Some even go to the extreme of depicting sadism, which is the gratification received from inflicting pain on others, masochism-the pleasure derived from abuse and/or suffering and even necrophilia, the sexual interest in dead people. When the viewer is exposed to themes such as these mentioned, it increases the likelihood that they may try to act out what they view on a regular basis, which leads to sexual crimes. These crimes can be devastating to individuals and the society as a whole. Rape related pregnancies may lead to abortions or unwanted children while the victim will be left with cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. The perpetrators of sexual crimes often end up serving jail time, depr...