The Harm in Hate Speech

Jeremy Waldron

Published by Harvard University Press 2012

The Harm in Hate Speech

Jeremy Waldron

Volume 2009 in the series The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, 2009.

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674065086

Overview
Contents

About this book

Every liberal democracy has laws or codes against hate speech—except the United States. For constitutionalists, regulation of hate speech violates the First Amendment and damages a free society. Against this absolutist view, Jeremy Waldron argues powerfully that hate speech should be regulated as part of our commitment to human dignity and to inclusion and respect for members of vulnerable minorities.

Causing offense—by depicting a religious leader as a terrorist in a newspaper cartoon, for example—is not the same as launching a libelous attack on a group’s dignity, according to Waldron, and it lies outside the reach of law. But defamation of a minority group, through hate speech, undermines a public good that can and should be protected: the basic assurance of inclusion in society for all members. A social environment polluted by anti-gay leaflets, Nazi banners, and burning crosses sends an implicit message to the targets of such hatred: your security is uncertain and you can expect to face humiliation and discrimination when you leave your home.

Free-speech advocates boast of despising what racists say but defending to the death their right to say it. Waldron finds this emphasis on intellectual resilience misguided and points instead to the threat hate speech poses to the lives, dignity, and reputations of minority members. Finding support for his view among philosophers of the Enlightenment, Waldron asks us to move beyond knee-jerk American exceptionalism in our debates over the serious consequences of hateful speech.

Author / Editor information

Waldron Jeremy :

Jeremy Waldron is University Professor, New York University School of Law, and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, University of Oxford.

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	v
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
1. Approaching Hate Speech Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Anthony Lewis’s Freedom for the Thought That We Hate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
3. Why Call Hate Speech Group Libel? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
4. The Appearance of Hate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
5. Protecting Dignity or Protection from Offense? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
6. C. Edwin Baker and the Autonomy Argument Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
7. Ronald Dworkin and the Legitimacy Argument Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
8. Toleration and Calumny Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	204
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 264
Illustrations
- Other: 1 line illustration

eBook

Published: June 4, 2012
ISBN: 9780674065086