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>What are the damages of hate speech? Can you realistically consider damages from a violent individual to have been caused by hate speech -- or is that a good scapegoat for a mentally disturbed individual to kill people with? Not only the actions of the individual (we must remember concepts such as stochastic terrorism) due to hearing hate speech, but also the harm of the speech itself. There's substantial work done on this concept, i.e. that speech itself at least has the potential to be actually harmful, and that there is no meaningful rigorous distinction between "speech" and "action" - metaphysical or otherwise. In this way, regulating speech should be just like we regulate any other kind of action. As Brison has said: "although this relational account helps to explain why the right to speak and to receive others’ speech is important, it does not yield a defense of the view that speech is special, requiring greater justification for its regulation than is needed for the regulation of other conduct." This[0] is a great paper to read for the argument. There are also more 'traditional arguments arguing that Mill's ideal (and the principle that free speech is based on) has become obsolete in the face of the ever-shortening distance between speech and action (which was observed during the rise of the Nazi Party), along with the function of mass media which dulls critical thinking[1]. [0] SJ Brison, "Speech, Harm, and the Mind-Body Problem in First Amendment Jurisprudence" (1998) http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindb... [1] "Surely, no government can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a democracy such a right is vested in the people (i.e. in the majority of the people). This means that the ways should not be blocked on which a subversive majority could develop, and if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require apparently undemocratic means. They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc." (Herbert Marcuse, "Repressive Tolerance" (1965)) |