Banned But Not Beaten: Confronting Book Bans from a Utilitarian Perspective

Abstract

Texas. Florida. Missouri. Utah. Pennsylvania. South Carolina. Tennessee. Oklahoma. What do these states have in common? In the last year, over 3,300 books have been banned within their school districts and libraries. Unfortunately, this is not an exhaustive list; there are several other states enacting book bans with the express purpose of politicizing and eliminating books that include themes of history, antiracism, identity, sexuality, and gender. The resurgence of book banning in the United States threatens to reverse hard-fought progress achieved in civil rights and social justice–and it runs contrary to the utilitarian principle of ethics. Utilitarianism states that an action is ethical if the sum of utilities produced by that action is greater than the sum of utilities from any other possible act (Meehan et al. 2023). In other words, actions are morally right if they promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Applying the utilitarian principle reveals that recent book bans in the United States fail to promote the greatest good for society; instead, book bans cause significant harm to historically marginalized groups and underscore the need for concerted opposition to this form of censorship. These bans put historically marginalized groups in danger and must be repelled via conscious action by publishers, educators, and concerned citizens.