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PHIL 3040 DE Term Paper Assignment F24

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22 views3 pages

PHIL 3040 DE Term Paper Assignment F24

Uploaded by

mahad24001
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Department of Philosophy | University of Guelph

PHIL 3040 DE: Philosophy of Law F24

Term Paper: Should Online Pornography be Regulated?

Consuming online pornography seems, on the face of it, to be a harmless and (at least
for some) pleasurable pastime. Assuming that no-one is forcing the actors and
actresses to perform in pornographic videos or forcing the consumer to watch them, and
moreover that all the parties involved are adults, then why should the government or Big
Tech interfere? If the consumer is watching pornography in the privacy of his or her own
home, then what harm is there in that? The foregoing argument, of course, is the
classical liberal one inspired by philosophers such as J.S. Mill. Since the advent of
online pornography as a widespread, mainstream phenomenon, however, others have
argued that pornography does indeed cause the sort of harm that might warrant some
sort of regulation.
For your term paper you are asked to look at these two sides of the pornography
debate. The debate became prevalent in the 1980s between liberals, who argued that,
although pornography might be offensive to some, it should nonetheless be tolerated in
a free, pluralistic society, and feminists, who argued that pornography was not merely
offensive but harmful to women due to the degrading way it depicted them. Access to
pornographic materials should therefore, it was argued, be limited by the state. With the
advent of the internet and the emergence and virtually unlimited availability of online
pornography since the 1990s, it is now possible to point to evidence that suggests that
pornography does indeed have harmful effects not only on women, but also on men.
Indeed, some argue that the addiction to pornography that results from repeated
consumption is a public health crisis that has consequences for all of society.
For your paper, please consult the following online sources:
1. Jessica Brown (2017) “Is Porn Harmful? The Evidence, The Myths and the
Unknowns,” BBC Future (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170926-is-porn-harmful-the-
evidence-the-myths-and-the-unknowns).
2. Pascal Emmanuel-Gobry, (2019) “A Science-Based Case for Ending the Porn
Epidemic,” Ethics and Public Policy Centre (https://eppc.org/publication/a-
science-based-case-for-ending-the-porn-epidemic/)
3. Eduardo Salazar, (2019) “The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern
Harm,” in N. Levin (Ed). Introduction to Ethics: An Open Educational Resource
(N.G.E. Far Press), 111-116. (https://philarchive.org/archive/LEVITE-3)
Once you have read these sources and are ready to write your paper, answer the
question: Do you think that viewing online pornography is harmful and, if so, does this
fact justify governmental or Big Tech intervention to make it more difficult to consume?
Your answer to this question will function as your thesis. You are, as usual, free to
answer this question however you want—there is no right or wrong answer, as such—
just so long as you argue for it, that is, so long as you provide sound reasons for your
opinion. Make sure to state your thesis—for example, “In this paper I will argue that
pornography is harmful to both women and men and that Big Tech, although not the
state, should regulate it to prevent such harms to its consumers. Specifically, I will argue
that…” or “In this paper, I will argue that, although pornography is harmful to men in
particular, I do not think that it should be regulated in any way for reasons I will lay out
below”, etc. Once you have established this thesis in your introduction, you should
proceed to argue your case (drawing on the sources provided for ideas and critical
evaluation) in the body of your paper.

Some Suggestions for How to Proceed

1. Read these instructions carefully.


2. Do not leave this assignment until the last minute (if possible, read the sources
as soon as you have time, make some notes on them, and then put the
assignment aside for a few days so that you can absorb and ruminate on the
material).
3. When you are ready to come back to the paper, read Peter Horban’s, “Writing a
Philosophy Paper” (http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/resources/writing.html).
4. Once you have done that, return to your notes and the sources for the paper.
5. Formulate your thesis and come up with an outline of which arguments you are
going to use to support your thesis. There are a lot of arguments for and against
pornography contained in the sources, and you cannot use them all in an 1800-
word paper—you will therefore have to be selective. Naturally, which arguments
and sources you use is going to depend on what your thesis is. [Note: Make
sure that you understand and present both sides of the debate clearly. That is, if
there is an objection to the argument you want to make, ensure that you are
aware of this counter argument and address it in your paper].
6. Once you are ready to write your paper, make sure that structure you it with an
Introduction (which will contain your thesis statement), a Body (where you
argue for your thesis and raise any counter-arguments to your position) and a
Conclusion (where you tie everything together).
7. When you are ready to submit your paper, go to Term Paper in the Assessments
section of CourseLink and read the instructions carefully, which will tell you how
to format the paper, what the word limit is, how to submit your paper through
CourseLink, what sort of grading rubric will be used by the Teaching Assistant,
etc.

Please Note the Following Important Details:

a. Although you will be able to submit this assignment earlier if you wish, the final
date on which you will be able to submit it without penalty is: November 04 @
11:59 PM. Late papers will be penalized at a rate of 2% per day up to November
11 @ 11:59 PM, after which papers will not be accepted.
b. The word limit is 1500-1600 words.

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