Hate Speech Laws, Legitimacy, and Precaution: A Reply to James Weinstein
Alexander Brown · Constitutional Commentary · 2015
Ronald Dworkin once remarked to me that he thought Robert Nozick was a highly skilled defender of the indefensible.I have the impression from reading James Weinstein's interesting article that this is partly how he sees defenders of hate speech bans. 1 This is not how I see myself, of course; which is to say, I see myself as neither especially skilful nor as defending the indefensible.Indeed, given that, as I attempted to show in my recent book, 2 not only does virtually every person on the planet live under at least some form of hate speech law but also such law is marked by great internal variety, I rather suspect that what is indefensible is either rejecting or defending hate speech law en masse.I hope to bring this out in my contribution to this symposium.3 There is much in Weinstein's article to contemplate, but I shall limit myself to making the following four main points.First, I believe that debates concerning the normative standing of hate speech law are always improved by heeding the internal variety of * Reader in Political and Legal Theory, University of East Anglia (UEA), UK.I am tremendously grateful to Professor Weinstein for inviting me to join this special edition and for numerous constructive and candid exchanges during the course of writing my reply.