Monday, February 12, 2018
The Right to Hate?
A white supremacist wants to advocate his political views on a billboard in a majority African-American neighborhood. A neo-Nazi group wants to march in a city with a large number of Holocaust survivors. A conservative Christian passes out literature denouncing the legitimacy of gay marriage outside of a wedding chapel. Are these actions examples of hate speech? If so, should they be legally permitted according to Mill? Is he correct? What should the state do about speech that discriminates or preaches intolerance?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
These examples are can be classified as hate speech and according to Mill, people should be able to express these views despite the fact that they are offensive to certain groups. Mill makes the argument that people with these opinions should be able to express themselves because there is no way to judge if an opinion is right or wrong because absolute certainty doesn't exist. Even if the government wanted to stop hate speech, there would be no way for them to determine if these opinions are actually wrong because no human is infallible. According to this idea no one, let alone the government, would be able to decide if these opinions are wrong or not. Even if somehow these opinions were found to be false, Mill believes that it is still wrong to stifle a false opinion. There is also the risk that when you suppress something like hate speech, you also can possibly suppress the truth as well. In Mill's opinion, the government stopping hate speech would be bad because in order to rectify mistakes there must be discussion. These discussions can't happen without conflicting views, so it is important that everyone has the ability to express their views and opinions even if they are not held by the majority.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe legal dictionary defines hate speech as, “talk that attacks an individual or a specific group based on a protected attribute such as the target’s sexual orientation, gender, religion, disability, color, or country of origin.” Using this as the definition, a white supremacist’s billboard, a Nazi march, and homophobic literature, are all examples of hate speech because they attack groups of people based on their color, religion, and sexual orientation. According to John Stuart Mills, hate speech, these examples included, should not be legally tolerated. Mills would not tolerate hate speech because of the most simply idea of On Liberty, the harm to others principle. Mills explains this principle as, “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Hate speech causes harm as a study conducted by Child Trends of fourteen years of hate speech found that, “students (ages 12-18) who reported having been a target of hate speech were …3.1 times more likely to report being violently victimized while at school.” (https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/victims-of-hate-speech/) To further these findings, Mullen of Syracuse University finds a direct correlation between hate speech and suicide rates, dating back over half a century. (https://www.news-medical.net/news/2004/08/13/4050.aspx) While some may like to argue that hate speech doesn’t cause harm, studies prove hate speech harmful in two ways. First, allowance of hate speech incites violence against minorities from those saying the hateful words. Second, hate speech has negative psychological effects on its victims, making it more likely that they will commit suicide. Since hate speech causes physical harm to others, Mills would be strictly against it. I completely agree with Mills, since statistics find harms in hate speech, especially against children. I think the first step states should take against hate speech, is restricting such speech in government owned buildings, including publically owned schools and universities. While some Americans may disagree with restricting free speech, it is important to remember that completely free speech does not currently exist in the US. Two examples of this are Title IX and the “Time, Place, and Manner” rule. Title IX is government legislation that restricts verbal sexual harassment. “Time Place and Manner” is a content neutral ban created by the Supreme Court that restricts speech at inappropriate times and places, such as screaming “fire” in a crowded movie theatre. Because of the harms to others principle and current US legislation, it is clear that hate speech should be banned.
In order to argue whether or not Mills would agree on making hate speech illegal, we need to first agree on his harm-to-others principle. Mills creates this ideology by arguing that something, whether it be an action or belief, should be legally allowed in a society and should not be restricted unless it causes harm to others. Yes, it can be debated whether or not this harm should be defined as direct or indirect, but for the sake of consistency in my argument I am going to say that this harm must be direct. Hate speech is defined by Dictionary.com as, “speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people”, so this can include hate speech that targets a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. However, legally speaking, currently in the United States hate speech does not exist due to the fact that it is considered to fall under free speech. I, along with Mill, agree with this because there is no explicit, direct harm being done by the speaker to any member of society. Yes, hate speech is directed towards individuals and the groups they belong to, but there is no actual harm involved. Despite there being no harm done, however, I would like to point out that this does not mean hate speech is either moral or ethical. By using Mills’ “harm to others” principle, it is obvious that he would agree that hate speech falls under free speech, as it not only causes zero direct harm, but can be considered tyrannical for a government to censor its people.
ReplyDelete