Hate Speech in Public Discourse
Maxime Lepoutre · Social Theory and Practice · 2017
Jeremy Waldron, among others, has forcefully argued that public hate speech assaults the dignity of its targets.Without denying this claim, I contend that it fails to establish that bans, rather than counterspeech, are the appropriate response.By articulating a more refined understanding of counterspeech, I suggest that counterspeech constitutes a better way of blocking hate speech's dignitarian harm.In turn, I address two objections: according to the first, which draws on contemporary philosophy of language, counterspeech does not block enough hate speech; according to the second, counterspeech blocks too much speech.Although these objections should qualify our optimism regarding counterspeech, I demonstrate that each can be turned, with even greater force, against hate speech bans.3 This definition is largely inspired by Waldron and Brettschneider.In legal scholarship, it echoes the UN's condemnation of speech "based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour".