Can a commitment to free speech be reconciled with the regulation of pornography? In The Problem of Pornography, Susan M. Easton argues that it can.
Using John Stuart Mill's harm principle as a starting-point, Easton explores and evaluates the feminist and liberal arguments in the debate on pornography, moral independence, censorship and the right to free speech. Given the problems of proving harm in the case of pornography, she argues that the concept of autonomy may provide a more suitable foundation for regulation, and shows how the legislation against incitement to racial hatred might serve as a model for legal constraints on pornography.
This book includes a review of the English and American laws on obscene materials and will prove invaluable reading for anyone interested in one of the thorniest issues in feminist, legal and social theory: is the censorship of pornography justifiable?

Susan Easton is a barrister and Lecturer in Law at Brunel University, London. She has written on Hegel and feminism and is the author of The Right to Silence, Disorder and Discipline and Humanist Marxism and Wittgensteinian Social Philosophy. She is Editor of the International Journal of Discrimination and the Law.

Chapter 1 The liberal defence of pornography; Chapter 2 The types of harm; Chapter 3 Proving harm; Chapter 4 Diversity and autonomy; Chapter 5 Feminism, truth and infallibility; Chapter 6 Free speech and majoritarianism; Chapter 7 The slippery slope; Chapter 8 Feminism and puritanism; Chapter 9 The protection of free speech; Chapter 10 Interpreting the First Amendment; Chapter 11 The civil rights Ordinances; Chapter 12 Freedom of speech and the regulation of pornography in English law; Chapter 13 The 'right' to consume pornography; Chapter 14 Incitement to sexual hatred; Chapter 15 Conclusion;