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Case Analysis (‘Virtual Child Pornography’ Case 1, Page 173)
Case Overview
“Virtual Child Pornography” is a term used to describe the motion picture depictions of children engaging in sexual activities, either between children or between children and adults, albeit using computer-generated images of children and not real children. Although the Federal Child Pornography Prevention Act banned virtual child pornography, the Supreme Court declared this prohibition unconstitutional in April 2002. However, the Court upheld the section of the Act that prohibits depictions of actual children.
Evaluation of Virtual Child Pornography in Terms of Ethics
The ethical controversy behind virtual child pornography stems from two moral principles- encouraging personal & public expression through entertainment and preventing potentially damaging and derogatory media from the public domain, which might threaten society’s moral paradigms. Arguments against the prohibition of virtual child pornography are based on the fact that computer-generation child pornography does not directly involve children and therefore does not cause direct harm to children, as compared to using actual depictions of children. Their ethical justification is the freedom for public & personal expression through adult entertainment. While the public and private expression is necessary for an ethically sound society, the transcending effects of the same in the greater society, more so the potential harm of making child pornography a part of adult entertainment, are enough reasons to validate the prohibition of virtual child pornography. The potential harm of virtual child pornography stems from the difficulty in distinguishing between computer-generated depictions of children engaging in explicit sexual activity and depictions of actual children (Paul and Linz). This threatens a potential normalization of child pornography. Research into pornography suggests that it goes beyond mere entertainment and is essentially a compendium of sexual fantasies of the human psyche. Many psychologists have argued that the prevalence of pornography that surged due to the commercialization of the internet contributed to a change in people’s perspectives on sex (Paul and Linz). Many young people that access pornography tend to normalize the depictions in the videos with real-life paradigms of sex. As such, virtual child pornography can induce sexual indifference among people and social conditioning (condoning pedophiles and contributing to the spread of pedophilic tendencies).
This risk should be the basis of ethical consideration of virtual child pornography. According to Ruggiero (pg 154), things and actions that are considered ‘good’ are only considered morally upright if they are aligned with an individual’s good character or goodwill. An individual’s character is a function of many things, the greatest of which is their environment. An individual’s goodwill may be ethically evaluated through the consideration (or lack thereof) of the consequences of actions- a precept of modern ethics. As such, an individual’s actions may be considered right or wrong through a careful analysis of the badness or goodness of the consequences of actions (utilitarianism) (Ruggiero, pg 151). Social responsibility of the people that create and produce virtual child pornography may also be ethically evaluated on the basis of benevolence- the opinion that the general well-being of others (everyone’s happiness) should be the priority of our actions and one’s happiness should not be pursued at the peril of others. While virtual child pornography in itself may be entertaining to its adult audience, the vulnerability of such materials getting into the hands of children, people with pedophilic tendencies means children would be at a higher risk of engaging in sexual activities with children. Therefore, the damaging effects of the potential effects of virtual child pornography should induce a sense of moral duty. According to Kant’s duty-centered ethical system, every person has a binding categorical imperative (Ruggiero, pg 151), our moral command or duty, based primarily on logical reason. It is ethically appropriate for everyone to accept and act according to their rationality (following reason).
The question then is evaluating the rationality of virtual child pornography and whether there is a moral responsibility to stop its production and distribution. Moral responsibility or culpability, according to the Ruggiero (pg 136), can be evaluated using two fundamental principles- an action is considered wrong if people that take part in the action know it’s wrong (based on potential consequences) but continue to engage in the activity anyway.
Conclusion
As such, producers and distributors of virtual child pornography should be held accountable for the same, despite not including real depictions of children. Complex technological advancements have made it difficult to distinguish between real and fake, while other depictions approve sexual activity among (or with) children. This poses many dangers, the most prevalent of which is the subtle and gradual social conditioning and normalizing of child engagement in sexual activity, which threatens the idea of sex among children and places children at a higher risk of pedophiles. As such, it would be morally upright to outlaw virtual child pornography, based on ethical precepts such as utilitarianism, goodwill, rationality, and benevolence. These ethical precepts are important because of their development and application in the modern era.