The issue as to whether book content should be censored evokes numerous key issues in debates regarding ethical discourse. On the one hand, those opposed to the censorship of books will suggest that such an act fundamentally limits the human being with regard to free speech and, ultimately, with regard to what the human being can think. Censorship is essentially, from this perspective, the curtailment of human autonomy and freedom; more specifically, with regard to the censorship of books, it is the curtailment of human intellectual productivity. On the other hand, those in favor of book censorship do not take the ethical imperative of free speech and free thought as evoking some absolute human value.
There are cases where that which is written, in the case of books, can have clearly negative effects, such as, for example, books which are racist, sexist, or unethical in character. Such works are ultimately detrimental to society and offensive, such that the appeal to free speech is not enough to defend these works from being judged as containing a detrimental content. However, the very debate of censorship of books is based on a key question: precisely who is the one who is doing the censoring?
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"Should Book Content Be Censored?".
What are the motivations of those who wish to censor particular works at particular times? In essence, the right to censor is based on the notion that the ethical perspective that shapes the judgment process is infallible. However, as human history clearly demonstrates, our norms and ethics have changed over time, continually evolving and relative to particular periods. In this regard, the censorship of books must be opposed to the extent that the support of censorship is in a profound sense the legitimization of the ethical world view of those who censor, without any critical engagement with this same world view.
From this perspective, the debate on censorship, and the censorship of books in particular, has a fairly complex structure. From one position, we can oppose censorship based on the notion that there is a fundamental right to human autonomy, freedom and therefore free speech. We have to defend our right to think, to speculate, to feel in a plurality and diversity of ways. One of the ways in which this is accomplished is the writing of books. In books, whether they be fiction or non-fiction, distinct world-views and perspectives on reality are advanced.
For example, in a work of fiction we may introduce a controversial and anomalous viewpoint, such as those novels that are written from the perspective of an anti-hero. These works contain central protagonists whose judgments may not be in line with the ethical norm. However, at the same time, who is to restrict the notion that these opinions, just because they are a minority, should be censored? This entails that just because a viewpoint that is in the majority, it is necessarily acceptable, but if it is in the minority, it is unacceptable. As an example, consider if someone wrote a book of non-fiction in Nazi Germany, where the main hero was Jewish and the antagonists were members of the Nazi Party. From the perspective of those who hold the power to censor in society, they would declare this book to be an obscenity, and therefore, this work would be censored.
However, as history has shown, the Nazi Party performed horrendous acts, which are clearly reprehensible and objectionable from an ethical perspective. In this case, the censored work would in fact be maintaining an ethical stance against a “majority” position, against a position of those who are in power and control society. Free speech and the ability to write what one thinks, from this angle, are indicative of an autonomy that is not bound to hegemonic structures of power, hegemonic structures of power which can be violent, racist and discriminatory in their very essence.
Those who are in favor of the censorship of books, however, would claim that there are certain fundamental principles that should be maintained and authors should not be free to express what they wish, to the extent that their work is a clear violation of these same principles. For example, some may state that a book on gay marriage is an affront to a Christian ethics. Taking an example from the recent past, Salman Rushdie”s book The Satanic Verses was viewed as an affront to the Islamic faith. However, what is the case in both of these examples is that some group is attempting to censor a book based on the fact that this book conflicts with their own normativities. To the extent that we endorse book censorship, we are saying that these normativities are correct, that they are infallible, and that any work that conflicts with them should be eliminated. But who decides what these normativities are? A work such as Mark Twain”s Huckleberry Finn was considered to be vehemently anti-racist. A racist society would ban such a book. However, does the fact that a particular society has the right, because of their power, to ban a book, justify this act of censorship?
According to this logic, the act of censorship of books is always an act imposed by those who hold power against those who do not hold power. The author”s book is questionable because it goes against the mainstream discourse. However, to endorse censorship is to endorse the remark that this mainstream discourse”s norms are infallible. From this viewpoint, those who endorse the censorship of books endorse the rule of the strong over the weak, although this rule has no ground other than the power structure of this relationship itself.
