"Public morals" redirects here. For the television series, see Public Morals (TV series)

Public Morals (TV series)

Public Morals is an American situation comedy that aired on the CBS network in October 1996. Created and executive produced by Steven Bochco, the series was poorly received and was canceled after airing only one episode.-Synopsis:...

.

Public morality refers to moral and ethical standards

Morality

Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 enforced in a society, by law or police work or social pressure, and applied to public life, to the content of the media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

, and to conduct in public places. A famous remark of Mrs Patrick Campbell

Mrs Patrick Campbell

Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.-Early life and marriages:Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini...

, that she did not care what people did as long as they "didn't frighten the horses" shows that in some sense even high tolerance

Toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

 expects a public limitation on behaviour (sexual conduct is implied here). At the opposite extreme a theocracy

Theocracy

Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....

 may equate public morality with religious instruction, and give both the equal force of law.

Public morality often means regulation of sexual matters, including prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 and homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, but also matters of dress and nudity

Nudity

Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...

, pornography

Pornography

Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

, acceptability in social terms of cohabitation

Cohabitation

Cohabitation usually refers to an arrangement whereby two people decide to live together on a long-term or permanent basis in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married...

 before marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

, and the protection of children. It is a main justification for censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

; it can lead to campaigns against profanity

Profanity

Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...

, and so be at odds with freedom of speech

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

. Gambling

Gambling

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

 is generally controlled: casino

Casino

In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...

s have been considered much more of a threat than large-scale lotteries or football pools

Football pools

A football pool, often collectively referred to as "the pools", is a betting pool based on predicting the outcome of top-level association football matches set to take place in the coming week. The pools are typically cheap to enter, with the potential to win huge money. Entries were traditionally...

. Public drunkenness is quite unacceptable in some societies, and legal control of consumption of alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

 is often justified in terms of public morality, just as much as for medical reasons or to limit alcohol-related crime. Drug legislation, historically speaking, has sometimes followed on similar reasoning. Abortion

Abortion

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 is sometimes treated as an aspect of public morality, even if it is legally defined, regulated by medical professionals, and almost entirely hidden from public view. AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 as a health policy issue is linked to public morality in a complicated manner.

Views on public morality do change over time. For example, there have been proscriptions against eating in the street or allowing women to smoke in public. These examples show that public views on which things which are acceptable often move towards wider tolerance. Rapid shifts the other way are often characterised by moral panic

Moral panic

A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...

s, as in the shutting down of theatres a generation after Shakespeare's death by the English Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

s.

It may also be applied to the morals of public life. Political corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

, or the telling of lies in public statements, tarnish not only individual politicians, but the entire conduct of political life, whether at local or national level. These are fairly universally regarded as blots on reputations, though in some cases there is a grey area between corruption and legitimate fund-raising. Whether the private lives of politicians are a public morals issue is not a matter of agreement, internationally speaking; the existence of an extramarital relationship of a Prime Minister would in some countries be considered a revelation well within the sphere of the public interest

Public interest

The public interest refers to the "common well-being" or "general welfare." The public interest is central to policy debates, politics, democracy and the nature of government itself...

, while in other countries it would be considered quite irrelevant.