Public Morality and Liberal Society

The issue of public morality so often at the center of heated debates about pornography narcotics public indecency violent entertainment family values et cetera is at once a continuing reality and a persistent dilemma in our liberal society. With <i>Public Morality and Liberal Society</i> Harry M. Clor makes an important contribution to this perennial and intensely debated theme by considering how public morality can be justified in theory and accommodated in practice within a liberal society. Clor develops his argument in five parts. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the various controversies and ambiguities about public morality in American life and public opinion. In Chapter 2 Clor presents the case for a public standard of morality and defends it against the most persistent objections. Chapter 3 covers some of the themes prominent in recent treatments of the subject of public morality and Chapter 4 critically analyzes the two theoretically dominant liberal orientations of recent decades the libertarian and egalitarian views. In Chapter 5 Clor compares the traditional ethical indictment of pornography with the current feminist indictment.