Hate Crime Concepts and their Moral Foundations
David Brax · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016
Hate crime legislation is established in many countries across the world, and the term ‘hate crime’ is widely applied in political and scholarly settings. While there seem to be widespread international agreement that hate crime requires particular legal responses, important questions remain. From a philosophical point of view, there are two basic questions. The first is conceptual: What exactly counts as a hate crime? The second is normative: What makes hate crimes particularly serious? This chapter distinguishes a number of answers to both of these questions and explores how they connect. The aim is to promote greater clarity, in order to avoid confusion, increase comparability, and better understand disagreements about hate crime globally.