Legislating Hate
In On Liberty, Mill argues for a very broad conception of freedom of expression. The only instances when anyone can interfere with the liberty of another is if the expression constitutes "a positive instigation to some mischievous act." An example of this would be yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater or Mill's example of telling an angry mob of poor workers "Corn dealers are starvers of the poor" while they are standing outside a corn dealer's house. Both of these examples seem to result in or at least create a situation where physical harm is caused.
According to Mill, the only justification for interfering with a person's liberty is to prevent harm to others. This is commonly called "the Harm Principle. I am wondering whether this principle would justify some version of hate speech legislation.
Perhaps we could think of a situation where what is said creates the requisite situation described above. For instance, some fairly respected person makes a nationally televised speech blaming a certain population of immigrants for the country's woes, which results in widespread acts of genocide. Should this be punishable by law? Or should it be protected as free speech?
According to Mill, the only justification for interfering with a person's liberty is to prevent harm to others. This is commonly called "the Harm Principle. I am wondering whether this principle would justify some version of hate speech legislation.
Perhaps we could think of a situation where what is said creates the requisite situation described above. For instance, some fairly respected person makes a nationally televised speech blaming a certain population of immigrants for the country's woes, which results in widespread acts of genocide. Should this be punishable by law? Or should it be protected as free speech?
posted by luvell anderson at 1:29 PM
2 Comments:
Luvelle,
I am inclined to say that it should be protected. Given the case you describe, let's suppose genocise does occur. Even in that case, the participants in the slaughter had to choose their participation. This, as I see it, exculpates the orator. He can we hold anyone to blame for the irrational and unintelligent actions of people other than themselves? Say that prominent astrophysicist goes on the national TV and says that there is a high degree of probability that an asteroid will collide with the Earth within the month. Then days later one does and millions are killed! Ought we hold this person to blame for the occurence? No! This would be irrational. They have no control over the movements of celestial objects. SImilarly, then, we ought not hold to blame those who simply say something that others act out on.
A counter example to my case comes to mind. What about the mobster who orders a hit? He also has no (physical) control over the soldier carry out his orders. Well, this is true, but nevertheless he ordinarily pays for the job! This payment inculpates the mobster.
Hey Adam,
thanks for the reply.
i'm inclined to agree though i should say that Mill would probably exclude these cases from constituting a positive instigation of mischievous acts. i guess my intuition is that there may be some cases like the example about the angry mob and the corn dealer that do fall outside of protected speech.
i should say though, that i am not a big fan of hate speech legislation, especially the Canadian version of it. i wouldn't want to put a cap on speech simply because it offends people nor would i want to do so because some irrational person or persons may act in foolish ways.
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