Conceptual Frontiers in the Understanding of Hate Speech
Alexander Brown, Adriana Sinclair · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2023
Chapter 1 establishes the context of our project and defends its theoretical and practical importance. Section 1.2 outlines the basic conceptual framework employed in the book, including the distinction between two concepts of hate speech and our twin-track approach to analysing them. We also highlight some of the pay-offs that flow from this conceptual framework. Section 1.3 explains what we mean by ‘grey areas of hate speech’ including identifying three underlying reasons or explanations why certain phenomena might end up falling into these areas, namely moral, semantic, and conceptual. We also try to motivate the significance and value of working to clear up the grey areas. Finally, Section 1.4 introduces and attempts to respond to the sceptical challenge that says, because the term ‘hate speech’ is linked to conceptual ambiguities, misleading connotations, an explosion of applications, and politicisation, it would be better to dispense with both the term and its concepts. We critically examine five main ways of responding to this sceptical challenge: rehabilitation, downsizing, abandonment, replacement, and enhanced understanding. We defend the final response as being the most promising and the overarching goal of the book.