Speech and Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech
Ishani Maitra, Mary Kate
McGowan - OUP Oxford, 2012
Most liberal societies are deeply
committed to a principle of free speech. At the same time, however, there is
evidence that some kinds of speech are harmful in ways that are detrimental to
important liberal values, such as social equality. Might a genuine commitment to
free speech require that we legally permit speech even when it is harmful, and
even when doing so is in conflict with our commitment to values like equality?
Even if such speech is to be legally permitted, does our commitment to free
speech allow us to provide material and institutional support to those who would
contest such harmful speech? And finally, and perhaps most importantly, which
kinds of speech are harmful in ways that merit response, either in the form of
legal regulation or in some other form? This collection explores these and
related questions. Drawing on expertise in philosophy, sociology, political
science, feminist theory, and legal theory, the contributors to this book
investigate these themes and questions. By exploring various categories of
speech (including pornography, hate speech, Holocaust denial literature, 'Whites
Only' signs), and attending to the precise functioning of speech, the essays
contained here shed light on these questions by clarifying the relationship
between speech and harm. Understanding how speech functions can help us work out
which kinds of speech are harmful, what those harms are, and how the speech in
question brings them about. All of these issues are crucially important when it
comes to deciding what ought to be done about allegedly harmful
speech.
