Public morality

Public morality remanded to moral in addition to ethical standards enforced in a society, by law or police make-up or social pressure, as well as applied to public life, to a content of the media, and to progress in public places. A famousof Mrs Patrick Campbell, that she did non care what people did as long as they "didn't frighten the horses", shows that in some sense even high tolerance expects a public limitation on behaviour sexual carry on is implied here. At the opposite extreme a theocracy may equate public morality with religious instruction, and give both the constitute force of law.

Public morality often means regulation of sexual matters, including prostitution and homosexuality, but also things of dress and nudity, pornography, acceptability in social terms of cohabitation ago marriage, and the security degree of children. it is a leading justification for censorship; it can lead to campaigns against profanity, and so be at odds with freedom of speech. Gambling is broadly controlled: casinos pull in been considered much more of a threat than large-scale lotteries or football pools. Public drunkenness is quite unacceptable in some societies, and legal leadership of consumption of alcohol 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 is sometimes treated as an aspect of public morality, even if it is for legally defined, regulated by medical professionals, and near entirely hidden from public view. AIDS as a health policy effect is linked to public morality in a complicated manner.

Views on public morality do change over time. Public views on which matters are acceptable often move towards wider tolerance. Rapid shifts the other way are often characterised by moral panics, as in the shutting down of theatres a rank after Shakespeare's death by the English Puritans.

It may also be applied to the morals of public life. Political corruption, or the telling of lies in public statements, tarnish non 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 effect is not a matter of agreement, internationally speaking; the existence of an extramarital relationship of a Prime Minister or even a President would in some countries be considered a revelation well within the sphere of the public interest, while in other countries it would be considered quite irrelevant.