Question Bracketing the various legal issues surrounding restricting certain forms of entertainment and entertainment content to 'children', what are the moral issues? How do we, for example, determine what is 'appropriate' for someone of a certain age to view/hear/experience? What is it about - again for example - swearing that makes it so unattractive and thus renders it undesirable for children's entertainment?

Accepted:
June 16, 2006

Comments

These are very good questions. For myself, I often think people overreact when children are exposed to human sexuality in entertainment, especially when they have so few compunctions about violent entertainment. Much of the question, however, depends upon psychological issues--when can children grasp the emotional, social, and personal consequences of sexua and violentl conduct. Practicallly speaking, I think the principle concern of parents is that children will imitate what they see or seek it out before they 're ready or when it's socially undesireable. The ideas that children have little appreciation of the consequences of various forms of conduct and that they imitate what they see are well grounded, I think. So, I think in order to determine what is appropriate for young people to see we ought to consider four factors: (1) how well children appreciate the meaning and consequences of what they see; (2) how likely they are to imitate it; (3) how much control they have over their impulses and desires; and (4) whether what's depicted presents positive portrays of the conduct in question. I might add (5) how well children are able to distinguish fictive realities from reality itself.

Good question about swearing, too. I wonder if you mean searing in the strict sense of blasphemy or whether you mean swearing in a the broader sense of any foul language. In children, I think with regard to children, people are often rightly concerned that children are likely to imitate the language but not appreciate its full range of meaning and not understand in which contexts it's appropriate and which contexts it's inappropriate to use it. Nor are they likely to have the self-control necessary to restrict its usage.