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115-631: David Harald Vilgot Sjöman (2 December 1924 – 9 April 2006) was a Swedish writer and film director. His films deal with controversial issues of social class, morality , and sexual taboos , combining the emotionally tortured characters of Ingmar Bergman with the avant garde style of the French New Wave . He is best known as the director of the films 491 (1964), I Am Curious (Yellow) (in Swedish , "Jag är nyfiken – gul") (1967), and I Am Curious (Blue) ("Jag är nyfiken – blå") (1968), which stretched

230-505: A cerebral haemorrhage in St. Görans Sjukhus in Stockholm, leaving behind his wife of 37 years and three children. Shortly after his death, a Swedish appeal court upheld a ruling that Swedish television broadcaster TV4 had damaged his and fellow director Claes Eriksson 's "artistic integrity" by inserting commercial breaks into broadcasts of their films without their consent. He had been awarded

345-478: A farce about a young married couple who believe they will die if they have sex, but most of his later films were less successful. His 1974 film A Handful of Love won the awards for Best Film and Best Director at the 10th Guldbagge Awards . He directed his last film in 1995, a biography of Alfred Nobel , inventor, industrialist, and founder of the Nobel Prizes, entitled Alfred . He died at age 81 from

460-497: A superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere." Religious value-systems can be used to justify acts that are contrary to general contemporary morality, such as massacres , misogyny and slavery . For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with

575-525: A 46-month prison sentence for obscenity. Many U.S. states have had bans on the sale of sex toys , regulating them as obscene devices. Some states have seen their sex toy bans ruled unconstitutional in the courts. That ruling leaves only Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia with current bans on the sale of obscene devices. Literature (non-fiction) communicating contraceptive information was prohibited by several states. The last such prohibition, in Connecticut,

690-554: A cast that included regular actors for Ingmar Bergman such as Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow , showing a young woman in love with two men, one older and the other younger. For her role, Andersson won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival . He assisted Ingmar Bergman with his 1963 film, Winter Light ("Nattvardsgästerna"). Sjöman's second film, 491 , from 1964,

805-471: A certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism , define right and wrong by the laws and rules as set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within each respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism , the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for in

920-645: A child. In New York v. Ferber , 458 U.S. 747 (1982), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that child pornography need not be legally obscene in order to be outlawed. The Court ruled that in contrast to the types of images considered in Miller , images that depicted underlying harm to children need not appeal to "the prurient interest of the average person", portray sexual conduct in "a patently offensive manner", nor be considered holistically, in order to be proscribed. Another difference between U.S. constitutional law concerning obscenity and that governing child pornography

1035-498: A class system." The film also shows the protagonist's affair with a young man, played by Börje Ahlstedt , and sparked controversy both in Sweden and abroad because of its nudity and realistic scenes of sexual intercourse between the two lovers. Rex Reed said the movie was "vile and disgusting" and Sjöman was "a very sick Swede with an overwhelming ego and a fondness for photographing pubic hair", but Norman Mailer described it as "one of

1150-457: A dissenting opinion, Justice Blackmun countered that Cohen's wearing of the jacket in the courthouse was not speech but conduct amounting to an "absurd and immature antic". Standards superseded by the Miller Test include: FCC rules and federal law govern obscenity in broadcast media. Many historically important works have been described as obscene or prosecuted under obscenity laws, including

1265-564: A fine. Criticism to the legislation have included: It is often used against people who expose their nude bodies in public environments that were not warranted a license to cater to the demographic interested in such practice (the first such place was the Praia do Abricó in Rio de Janeiro, in 1994), even if no sexual action took place, and it may include, for example, a double standard for the chest area of women and men in which only women are penalized. Such

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1380-518: A group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that

1495-543: A jacket bearing the words "Fuck the Draft" while visiting the Los Angeles Courthouse to testify as a defense witness in a court hearing. Although Cohen removed the jacket before entering the courtroom, he had been observed wearing it in the courthouse corridor by a court officer. When Cohen left the courtroom, the officer arrested him for disturbing the peace. Cohen defended his attire as being an expression of disapproval of

1610-544: A moral judgment. According to such investigations, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to

1725-414: A moral judgment. Moral reasoning is controlled and less affective than moral intuition. When making moral judgments, humans perform moral reasoning to support their initial intuitive feeling. However, there are three ways humans can override their immediate intuitive response. The first way is conscious verbal reasoning (for example, examining costs and benefits). The second way is reframing a situation to see

1840-470: A nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content. Political morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. The Sentience Institute , co-founded by Jacy Reese Anthis , analyzes the trajectory of moral progress in society via the framework of an expanding moral circle. Noam Chomsky states that ... if we adopt

1955-424: A new perspective or consequence, which triggers a different intuition. Finally, one can talk to other people which illuminates new arguments. In fact, interacting with other people is the cause of most moral change. The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by multiple quantitative large-scale meta-analyses of the brain activity changes reported in

2070-402: A perfectly rational being, respectively. Practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. Real life issues that need solutions do need both rationality and emotion to be sufficiently moral. One uses rationality as a pathway to the ultimate decision, but the environment and emotions towards the environment at the moment must be a factor for

2185-617: A person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant 's ' categorical imperative ' and Geisler 's graded absolutism . Green relates

2300-505: A prison while writing plays (none of which were produced). One play became his first novel, The Teacher ("Lektorn") (1955), which was filmed in 1952 by Gustaf Molander as Defiance ("Trots"). After taking up a scholarship to study film at UCLA in 1956, Sjöman worked with George Seaton on The Proud and Profane . He returned to Sweden, and wrote a study of Hollywood, In Hollywood ("I Hollywood") in 1961. Sjöman directed his first film in 1962, The Mistress ("Älskarinnan"), with

2415-417: A religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides." Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value-systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism , freethought , humanism , utilitarianism , and others. There are many types of religious value-systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam , Judaism , Christianity , and to

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2530-447: A sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management . Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution

2645-407: A shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands. Regarding the issues of morality in video games, some scholars believe that because players appear in video games as actors, they maintain a distance between their sense of self and the role of the game in terms of imagination. Therefore,

2760-403: A shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless, certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting

2875-402: A society. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to claims of right and wrong that are seen to be made and to conflicts between different claims made. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything) is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of

2990-529: A supernatural or universalist understanding of principles – values including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These values can be resources for finding common ground between believers and nonbelievers. Obscene An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus , obscaenus , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally,

3105-486: A thing took place in the 2012 FEMEN protests in São Paulo. Various countries have different standings on the types of materials that they as legal bodies permit their citizens to have access to and disseminate among their local populations. The set of these countries' permissible content vary widely accordingly with some having extreme punishment up to and including execution for members who violate their restrictions, as in

3220-618: A variety of content involving pornography and violence. Section 163 of the Canadian Criminal Code provides the country's legal definition of "obscenity". Officially termed as "Offences Tending to Corrupt Morals", the Canadian prohibited class of articles that are to be legally included as "obscene things" is very broad, including text-only written material, pictures, models (including statues) records or "any other obscene thing". According to Section 163(8), if "a dominant characteristic of

3335-1070: Is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution . Some evolutionary biologists , particularly sociobiologists , believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors. On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation . Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to

3450-410: Is a record of child sexual abuse . Abuse of the child occurs during the sexual acts that are recorded in the production of child pornography, and several professors of psychology state that memories of the abuse are maintained as long as visual records exist, are accessed, and are "exploited perversely". Some countries also bans writings —that depict sexually explicit activities involving

3565-619: Is also helpful at the individual level for the passing on of one's genes. For example, a mother who favors her own children more highly than the children of other people will give greater resources to her children than she will to strangers', thus heightening her children's chances of survival and her own gene's chances of being perpetuated. Due to this, within a population, there is substantial selection pressure exerted toward this kind of self-interest, such that eventually, all parents wind up favoring their own children (the in-group) over other children (the out-group). Peterson and Seligman approach

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3680-439: Is an illusion. Lastly, the authors explain a basic psychological mechanism that uses two well-established phenomena (distorted exposure to information and distorted memory of information) to cause the illusion of moral decline. The authors present studies that validate some of the predictions about the circumstances in which the perception of moral decline is attenuated, eliminated, or reversed (e.g., when participants are asked about

3795-462: Is based on a novel by Lars Görling and deals with the issues of homosexuality and juvenile delinquency ; it includes a scene in which a girl is raped, off-screen, by a dog. His fourth film, My Sister My Love ( Syskonbädd 1782 ), from 1966, again starred Bibi Andersson and is based on 'Tis Pity She's a Whore , a 17th-century play by John Ford about incest between twins, a brother and sister. His most well-known film, I Am Curious (Yellow) ,

3910-457: Is composed of two articles, Art. 233 "Obscene Act", "to practice an obscene act in a public place, or open or exposed to the public", punished with arrest of 3 months to 1 year or a fine; and Art. 234 "Obscene Written Piece or Object", to do, import, export, purchase or have in one's property, to ends of trade, distribution or public display, any written, drew, painted, stamped or object piece of obscenity, punished with arrest of 6 months to 1 year or

4025-445: Is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as to the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in

4140-572: Is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt", stated in 1868 by Lord Justice Cockburn , in Regina v. Hicklin , now known as the Hicklin test . Stanley Kauffmann 's novel The Philanderer was published by Penguin Books in 1957 and was unsuccessfully prosecuted for obscenity. The Obscene Publications Act is famously vague, defining obscenity with reference to material that is likely to "deprave and corrupt". The 1959 act

4255-547: Is morally acceptable in one culture may be taboo in another. They further contend that no moral virtue can objectively be proven right or wrong Critics of moral relativism point to historical atrocities such as infanticide, slavery, or genocide as counter arguments, noting the difficulty in accepting these actions simply through cultural lenses. Fons Trompenaars , author of Did the Pedestrian Die? , tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas . One of these

4370-635: Is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often,

4485-471: Is not always absolute, contending that moral issues often differ along cultural lines. A 2014 PEW research study among several nations illuminates significant cultural differences among issues commonly related to morality, including divorce, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, gambling, abortion, alcohol use, contraceptive use, and premarital sex. Each of the 40 countries in this study has a range of percentages according to what percentage of each country believes

4600-436: Is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy , and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view. Recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory , developmental psychology , social neuroscience , and psychopathy, Jean Decety argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary. An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves

4715-557: Is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow. Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics , religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and

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4830-561: Is that the Supreme Court ruled in Stanley v. Georgia , 394 U.S. 557 (1969), that possession of obscene material could not be criminalized, while in Osborne v. Ohio , 495 U.S. 103 (1990), the high court ruled that possession of child pornography could be criminalized. The reason was that the motive for criminalizing child pornography possession was "to destroy a market for

4945-452: Is the active opposition to morality (i.e., opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality'   ... and sometimes it

5060-553: Is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand". Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, Hinduism lacks any absolute prohibition on killing, recognizing that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. Monotheistic traditions view certain acts—such as abortion or divorce —in more absolute terms. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with

5175-498: Is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return

5290-531: Is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics , sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality. Philosopher Simon Blackburn writes that "Although the morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant , based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for

5405-458: The European Journal of Personality , found that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. Another study, conducted by Smith and Hatemi, similarly found significant evidence in support of moral heritability by looking at and comparing the answers of moral dilemmas between twins. Genetics play a role in influencing prosocial behaviors and moral decision-making. Genetics contribute to

5520-623: The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution . Federal obscenity law in the U.S. is unusual in that there is no uniform national standard. Former Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States , in attempting to classify what material constituted exactly "what is obscene", famously wrote, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced ... [b]ut I know it when I see it ...." In

5635-630: The Ingmar Bergman Prize in 2003 for pursuing this court case. Morality Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics , which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology , and normative ethics , which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism . An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule , which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality

5750-429: The caste system , and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the " Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally-suspect themes in

5865-501: The maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect , where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding . The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function

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5980-504: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a region involved in valuation, while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area, a region that plays a key role in understanding intentions and beliefs. Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation , or neurological lesion, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming

6095-486: The 19-year-old writer of a fictional sex story "The Forestwood Kids"; however, the case was dismissed in 1995. In February 2009, citing its Policy On The Classification Of Obscene Material , the CBSA banned two Lucas Entertainment films because they show the "ingestion of someone else's urine... with a sexual purpose". In 2016 Mark Marek, owner of bestgore.com , pleaded guilty to breaching obscenity legislation for posting

6210-714: The BBFC. If the BBFC refuses a certificate, a video is effectively banned for home viewing, but not necessarily in the cinema . Four films that were originally refused a certificate— The Exorcist , Straw Dogs , The Evil Dead , and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre —were granted a certificate in the late 1990s and have subsequently been screened on mainstream television . According to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, "publication may be age-restricted if it contains highly offensive language likely to cause serious harm". In New Zealand, screening of Deep Throat (1972)

6325-673: The Bible's New Testament as well. Elizabeth Anderson likewise holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Hebrew Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not as property. Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to

6440-552: The RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. Based on this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information

6555-510: The U.S., the 1973 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Miller v. California established a three-tiered test to determine what was obscene—and thus not protected, versus what was merely erotic and thus protected by the First Amendment . Delivering the opinion of the court, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote: The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that

6670-493: The UK prosecuted a man for writing a fictional sex story ( R v Walker ). In 2009, the crown prosecution service (CPS) dropped the case. During the 1960s and 1970s most Western countries legalised hardcore pornography . By the 1980s the UK was almost the only liberal democracy where the sale of hardcore pornography was still completely illegal, although ownership was not a criminal offence (except child pornography ). Home videotape

6785-460: The anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity ; justice; temperance; and transcendence . Each of these include several divisions. For instance humanity includes love , kindness , and social intelligence . Still, others theorize that morality

6900-400: The authorities tried to prevent the illegal sale of pornography they found that juries , while not particularly liking the material, were reluctant to convict defendants where the material was intended for private use among consenting adults. During the 1990s the advent of the internet made it easier than ever before for British citizens to access hardcore material. Finally, in 2000, following

7015-423: The belief that morality is deteriorating continuously, and this conviction has been present for the last 70 years. Subsequently, they indicate that people ascribe this decay to the declining morality of individuals as they age and the succeeding generations. Thirdly, the authors demonstrate that people's evaluations of the morality of their peers have not decreased over time, indicating that the belief in moral decline

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7130-499: The boundaries of acceptability of what could then be shown on film, deliberately treating their subjects in a provocative and explicit manner. Sjöman was born in Stockholm , in a working-class family. His father, Anders W. Sjöman, was a builder; his mother was Mandis Pettersson. Sjöman became a clerk with a cereal company aged 15, but passed his studentexamen in 1945 and studied at the later Stockholm University . He then worked in

7245-486: The capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes. The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in

7360-590: The case of Iran where the current laws against pornography now include death sentences for those convicted of producing pornography. In India the Obscenity law is the same as had been framed by the British Government. Charges of obscenity have been levelled against various writers and poets till date; the law has not yet been revised. The famous trials relate to the Hungryalists who were arrested and prosecuted in

7475-399: The case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own. Similarly, individuals with a lesion of the VMPC judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action. Moral intuitions may have genetic bases. A 2022 study conducted by scholars Michael Zakharin and Timothy C. Bates , and published by

7590-422: The common moral issues are acceptable, unacceptable, or not moral issues at all. Each percentage regarding the significance of the moral issue varies greatly on the culture in which the moral issue is presented. Advocates of a theory known as moral relativism subscribe to the notion that moral virtues are right or wrong only within the context of a certain standpoint (e.g., cultural community). In other words, what

7705-430: The common perception of a decline in morality in societies worldwide and throughout history. Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert present a series of studies indicating that the perception of moral decline is an illusion and easily produced, with implications for misallocation of resources, underuse of social support, and social influence. To begin with, the authors demonstrate that people in no less than 60 nations hold

7820-542: The consequences brought about in the situation (Consequences-component, C). This, implies that various inputs of the situation a person encounters affect moral cognition. Jonathan Haidt distinguishes between two types of moral cognition: moral intuition and moral reasoning. Moral intuition involves the fast, automatic, and affective processes that result in an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike, without awareness of going through any steps. Conversely, moral reasoning does involve conscious mental activity to reach

7935-635: The controversy surrounding the film guaranteed it large audiences, and it became and remained the most successful foreign film in the US for the next 23 years. Its title, and that of the 1968 sequel, I Am Curious (Blue) , refers to the yellow and blue colours of the flag of Sweden . It marked a turning point in attitudes to censorship of screen nudity, and was followed by films such as Midnight Cowboy and Last Tango in Paris . Sjöman returned to similar themes in later films. He directed Till Sex Do Us Part in 1971,

8050-708: The court most famously determined that "Obscene material in book form is not entitled to any First Amendment protection merely because it has no pictorial content." In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice formed the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in a push to prosecute obscenity cases. Red Rose Stories, a site dedicated to text-only fantasy stories, became one of many sites targeted by the FBI for shutdown. The government alleged that Red Rose Stories contained depictions of child rape. The publisher pleaded guilty. Extreme pornographer Max Hardcore served 30 months of

8165-452: The cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism. Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of

8280-419: The decision-making and moral behavior of players in the game are not representing player's Moral dogma. It has been recently found that moral judgment consists in concurrent evaluations of three different components that align with precepts from three dominant moral theories (virtue ethics, deontology , and consequentialism): the character of a person (Agent-component, A); their actions (Deed-component, D); and

8395-452: The development and expression of certain traits and behaviors, including those related to morality. However, it is important to note that while genetics play a role in shaping certain aspects of moral behavior, morality itself is a multifaceted concept that encompasses cultural, societal, and personal influences as well. If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing

8510-448: The development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud , who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance. Theories of moral development therefore tend to regard it as positive moral development:

8625-896: The development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg , Jean Piaget , and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development ; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan , moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence , particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy . Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan , see moral commitment as arising from

8740-734: The development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an " in-group " (the individual and those they believe to be of the same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards

8855-400: The differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments. Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to

8970-560: The dismissal of a test case brought by the BBFC , hardcore pornography was effectively legalised, subject to certain conditions and licensing restrictions. It is still an offence to sell obscene material by mail order . After 1984, videotape sellers were more likely to be prosecuted under the Video Recordings Act rather than the OPA. The VRA requires that all videos must have a certificate from

9085-599: The exploitative use of children" rather than to prevent the material from poisoning the minds of its viewers. The three dissenting justices in that case argued, "While the sexual exploitation of children is undoubtedly a serious problem, Ohio may employ other weapons to combat it." This is most notably shown with the "X" rating under which some films are categorized. The most notable films given an "X" rating were Deep Throat (1972) and The Devil in Miss Jones (1973). These films show explicit, non-simulated, penetrative sex that

9200-514: The favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984) Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and

9315-457: The first obscenity cases dealt with textual works. The classification of "obscene" and thus illegal for production and distribution has been judged on printed text-only stories starting with Dunlop v. U.S. , 165 U.S. 486 (1897), which upheld a conviction for mailing and delivery of a newspaper called the Chicago Dispatch , containing "obscene, lewd, lascivious, and indecent materials", which

9430-499: The form of merit , to determine if an action is termed right or wrong. Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the values of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism , "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism , this relativity of values and obligations

9545-486: The higher stages are morally higher, though this, naturally, involves a circular argument. The higher stages are better because they are higher, but the better higher because they are better. As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction. A new study analyses

9660-399: The in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives , but far less so by liberals . In-group preference

9775-474: The moral neuroscience literature. The neural network underlying moral decisions overlaps with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that

9890-407: The moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction ( inclusive fitness ). Examples:

10005-402: The morality of people closest to them or people who lived before they were born). Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes implicated in moral judgment and decision making, and moral action. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally salient stimulus to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it is important to mention that there

10120-408: The more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue , and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations." In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values , codes of conduct or social mores that are observed to be accepted by a significant number of individuals (not necessarily all) in

10235-849: The most important pictures I have ever seen in my life". An 11-minute section was cut by the British censor , and copies of the film were seized by U.S. Customs in January 1968 as obscene , and banned as pornography in most of the United States. After the US Supreme Court overturned the anti-obscenity ban on First Amendment grounds, the film was screened from March 1969 in US venues—one in New York City, and another one in New Jersey . Also screen in Oklahoma City Oklahoma March 1969. However,

10350-476: The neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems. Cognitive neuroscientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy

10465-675: The northern English city of Leeds . Parts of the Act were repealed shortly after the Paraskos trial and it has rarely been used since in relation to visual art. Sex crime has generated particular concern. In 1976 the BBFC said that, in that year, it had viewed 58 films depicting "explicit rape", declaring scenes that glorified it as "obscene". As opposed to questions of "indecency", which have been applied to sexual explicitness, films charged with being obscene have been viewed as having "a tendency to deprave and corrupt" and been liable to prosecution. In 2008,

10580-434: The principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil. In fact, one of them, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles

10695-698: The public in the United States; the ratings are issued through the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA). The intent of the rating system is to provide information about the content of motion pictures so parents can determine whether an individual motion picture is suitable for viewing by their children. Obscenity law in England and Wales is currently governed by the Obscene Publications Act , but obscenity law dates back much further into English common law . The conviction in 1727 of Edmund Curll for

10810-607: The publication is the undue exploitation of sex, or the combination of sex and at least one of crime, horror, cruelty or violence", that publication is deemed to be "obscene" under the current law. The current law states: 163. (1) Every person commits an offence who makes, prints, publishes, distributes, circulates or has in their possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or any other obscene thing. The Canada Border Services Agency seizes items it labels obscene. In 1993, Canadian police arrested

10925-582: The publication of Venus in the Cloister or the Nun in her Smock under the common-law offence of disturbing the peace appears to be the first conviction for obscenity in the United Kingdom, and set a legal precedent for other convictions. These common-law ideas of obscenity formed the original basis of obscenity law in other common law countries, such as the United States. The classic definition of criminal obscenity

11040-411: The remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogeneous communities, in contrast to port -cities, where

11155-452: The result to be truly moral, as morality is subject to culture. Something can only be morally acceptable if the culture as a whole has accepted this to be true. Both practical reason and relevant emotional factors are acknowledged as significant in determining the morality of a decision. Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes the latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines

11270-604: The same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Moral foundations theory , authored by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, has been used to study the differences between liberals and conservatives , in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and

11385-405: The sense synonymous with moral universalism . For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from the edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of

11500-470: The term can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage in expressions such as "obscene profits " and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to descriptions and depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity. In the United States , issues of obscenity raise issues of limitations on the freedom of speech and of the press , which are otherwise protected by

11615-434: The values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics ) are broadly divided into two classes: Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism , while considered anti-realist in the robust sense used here, are considered realist in

11730-581: The video of the murder of Jun Lin . He received a six-month non-custodial sentence in a plea agreement, and left court after sentencing with his mouth covered in duct tape to protest his prosecution. Ever since 1940, in the Title VI of the Penal Code, naming crimes against sexual dignity (until 2009 crimes against social conventions), the fourth chapter is dedicated to a crime named "public outrage related to modesty" ( Portuguese : ultraje público ao pudor ). It

11845-564: The war in Vietnam. Nonetheless, he was convicted of "maliciously and willfully disturbing the peace" and sentenced to 30 days in jail. The conviction was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court of California but reversed by the Supreme Court. In a 5–4 decision, Justice Harlan wrote for the Court that Cohen's conviction was based solely on speech and was protected by the First Amendment. 403 U.S. at 26. In

11960-406: The work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. While most recent (2016) obscenity cases in the U.S. have revolved around images and films,

12075-838: The works of Charles Baudelaire , Lenny Bruce , William S. Burroughs , Allen Ginsberg , James Joyce , D. H. Lawrence , Henry Miller , Samuel Beckett , and the Marquis de Sade . Obscenity law has been criticized in the following areas: Obscenity laws remain enforceable under Miller despite these criticisms. Some states have passed laws mandating censorship in schools, universities, and libraries even if they are not receiving government aid that would require censorship in these institutions . These include Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Twenty more states were considering such legislation in 2001–2002. Child pornography refers to images or films (also known as child abuse images ); as such, visual child pornography

12190-432: Was a booming market and it was relatively simple for individuals to smuggle hardcore material in from Europe or the United States, where it could be purchased legally, either for personal use or to copy it for distribution. This resulted in a considerable black market of poor quality videotapes. Meanwhile, people attempting to buy pornography legally would often be sold heavily censored R18 certificate material. While

12305-424: Was a political film that examined Swedish society from a critical, leftist viewpoint, portraying a young working-class sociology student, played by Lena Nyman , interviewing people about social classes in Sweden. Filmed in a knowing cinéma vérité style, she asks, "Do we have a class system in Sweden?" and receives the reply, "It depends on the people. Undress them, and they're all the same; dress them, and you have

12420-592: Was abandoned amidst derision from academics and the media . For visual works of art the main obscenity law in England and Wales was, until the 1960s, the Vagrancy Act 1838 which was successfully used in prosecutions against D.H. Lawrence for an exhibition of his paintings at the Warren Gallery, London, in 1929, and in 1966 against the British artist Stass Paraskos for an exhibition of his paintings held that year in

12535-445: Was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities. In modern moral psychology , morality is sometimes considered to change through personal development. Several psychologists have produced theories on

12650-428: Was later upheld in several cases. One of these was "A Book Named John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure " v. Attorney General of Com. of Massachusetts, " 383 U.S. 413 (1966) " wherein the book " Fanny Hill ", written by John Cleland c.  1760 , was judged to be obscene in a proceeding that put the book itself on trial rather than its publisher. Another was Kaplan v. California , 413 U.S. 115 (1973) whereby

12765-681: Was only cleared in 1986. However, the film has not been screened because the only cinema that has tried to organize a screening was thwarted by the city council that owned the building's lease. Section 9 of the Criminal Law provide provisions against pornography , including creation, distribution and organizing public viewing. In 2016, the Ministry of Culture in China censored 23 companies for hosting obscene content online. The take-down included over 20,000 live feeds from 26 different websites that were hosting

12880-471: Was overturned judicially in 1965. In Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the word "fuck", although almost universally considered obscene when used to describe sexual intercourse, is speech-protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution when used to express a political belief. On 26 April 1968, Paul Robert Cohen, then 19 years old, donned

12995-483: Was passed at the point when most Western countries were about to enter a new phase of sexual freedom . The trial of Penguin Books over their publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960 failed to secure a conviction and the conviction in the 1971 trial of Oz magazine was overturned on appeal. An attempt to prosecute the University of Central England in 1997 over a copy of a library book by Robert Mapplethorpe

13110-691: Was presented as part of a reasonable plot with respectable production values. Some state authorities issued injunctions against such films to protect "local community standards"; in New York, the print of Deep Throat was seized mid-run, and the film's exhibitors were found guilty of promoting obscenity. According to the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated , films that include gay sex (even if implied) or female pleasure have been more harshly censored than their heterosexual, male counterparts. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) issues ratings for motion pictures exhibited and distributed commercially to

13225-841: Was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite. Anthropologists from Oxford's Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources and discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others' property. The development of modern morality

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