Browsing by Subject "Hate Speech"

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Hate: To Tolerate or To Legislate
(2021-05) Wade, Jack
What are the values that people weigh when discussing limitations on hate speech? Can hate speech laws be written such that they don't infringe upon other values? If not, does the good of such laws outweigh the bad? These philosophical questions are necessary to fully understand contemporary arguments about hate speech. In answering these questions, my thesis explores various viewpoints, traversing between the classical views of Milton and Mill, who provide an epistemological defense of free speech; the views of critical race theorists such as Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, and Crenshaw, who argue for hate speech restrictions; and the anti-restriction views of Strossen, who argues that hate speech laws are ineffective and counterproductive. I don't intend to provide a definitive answer to the question of hate speech (although I do line up with one of these schools of thought), but rather to try to encapsulate as best as possible the various arguments, laying out their differences in valuations and their objections to each other.