conflicting solutions to the dilemma. On one hand, the Christian perspective prohibits pornography. Emphasising the importance of individual autonomy, the atheistic perspective on the other hand sees pornography consumption as an act individuals can choose to engage in or not, mostly because it does not harm others.
The Bible implicitly forbids the consumption of pornography. Though God created human beings as sexual beings, He warns about the misuse of sex (Romans 1: 24-25). According to the Bible, sex is only permissible to the married (1 Corinthians 7: 2-3). Furthermore, the Bible prohibits sexual practices such as sexual exposure (Genesis 9: 21), adultery (Leviticus 18: 23), prostitution (Deuteronomy… Continue Reading...
individual autonomy, individual choice, and individual right to liberty.
In 1902, Massachusetts granted its city boards of health the permission to mandate smallpox vaccinations for the sake of public safety. In theory, this permission was no different from Congress’s Patriot Act following 9/11, which granted permission to the State’s various intelligence agencies to… Continue Reading...
political philosophy is concerned with the proper balance between legitimate state authority, including violence, on one hand, and individual autonomy, including autonomy of the body, on the other hand, then interrogational torture is also an important problem in normative political theory.”4
Despite these growing concerns, proponents of the global war on terrorism maintain that the use of torture is justified given the potential for future terrorist attacks on the scale of those of September 11, 2001 and the need to protect the country’s interests at home and abroad. For example, former Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledged in an exit interview that he was directly responsible for authorizing the… Continue Reading...
needs of the collective with the need for individual autonomy. Self-preservation is the key to the survival of a society, just as it is with an animal species.
Sustaining a society requires physical strength, intellect, and ethics, according to Yan Fu. Therefore, a society that has a vested interest in self-preservation would endeavor at all costs to promote these three core features. Brute force alone is insufficient; the society must also exhibit intellectual prowess and ethical integrity. Yan Fu extols the virtues of Western societies, claiming that they have been successful precisely because they have been able to… Continue Reading...
