Topics Ethics

Question Hi philosophers, i have a question about indecency. Social norms at the beginning of the 20th century would have considered women who showed any of their skin in public as indecent (and illegal). It would also have been (as one could imagine) indecent and illegal for couples to engage in explicitly sexual conduct in public (i.e. sexual intercourse) By 21st century social norms, it is socially and morally unobjectionable for women to show off their skin in public, but it is still a crime for couples to engage in acts of explicitly sexual conduct. Based on the two examples above, i would like to ask the following two questions: can you imagine some types of conduct that will ALWAYS be considered indecent irrespective of changing social norms? And if so, what properties would these conducts have that makes its indecency distinct from conducts whose indecency will change according to social norms?

Accepted:
March 9, 2011

Comments

I don't think one can define any apriori indecent actions, that is, any actions that would always be taken to be indecent. It is remarkable how standards change, and in fact explicitly sexual behaviour is not anymore regarded as indecent by many people, although it remains illegal in most countries. When it comes to public standards of acceptable behaviour which do not make an explicit link with morality, anything goes. The only way to define some general standards of indecency would be to establish some link between them and morality itself, and that of course is very difficult.

Parents of young girls are often shocked at their fashion sense, in that the latter often want to dress in sexually provocative ways, entirely out of line with their ages. Yet the girls themselves despite their clothes often display no great interest in sex or proclivity for sexual misbehaviour, as socially defined for their age range. Unless we can show that the standards of decency mesh in some way with the rules of morality, we have no way of defending general principles of decency and indecency.