Rights

Gbear

This could probably go in the philosophy forum but I like you guys and what we do here.

Any time we get into a debate about freedom of speech or expression or freedom in general the same problem pops up:
You get an argument between people who disagree on which right trumps which.

So, if I'm arguing that Mohammed cartoons are okeydokey I'm arguing that freedom of expression trumps freedom not to be offended.

My question is a general one of why does one freedom trump another?
What makes your right to life trump my right to stab you in the face? :pac:


I'm perfectly convinced that your right to life is paramount so don't all rush off to get stab-proof vests, but I don't know why I'm convinced of that or the more general notion of one right trumping another.

What decides what hierarchy rights have? Right to life trumping right to stab in face is intuitive but it isn't always as obvious - hence my need for some sort of logic to sort them out so that when I can't decide using my intuition, I can have a go at working it out from first principles.

Peregrinus

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, I’m afraid.

The problem here is that “rights” are not an empirically demonstrable reality; they are a philosophical construct, a way of speaking that we have developed in the last two or three hundred years to talk about how we think we ought to behave towards one another. Thus you can never prove that anyone has any right to do anything at all; you can merely assert that they do and hope to find people who agree with you.

You can hope to build that kind of shared agreement by appealing to other values or beliefs that may be shared. For example, if you and I agree that the primary role of the state is to maximise individual freedom of action, that will tend to create a wider space in which we can discern rights that we both agree must be respected. (Whereas if we think the role of the state is to preserve public order, or to foster optimal conditions for creating wealth, we will agree on a somewhat different and possibly narrower set of rights.) But, again, this depends on a shared agreement about what the proper role of the state is and this, too, is not something that can be proven or empirically demonstrated.

Ultimate this is a question of values. The rights we recognise and affirm reflect the values that we hold, and in the event of a conflict which right trumps which depends on which underlying value you accord a greater weight to. Knowing which value you accord a greater weight to can be difficult enough, but knowing why you accord a greater weight to it is even more difficult, since there is no objective empirical reason why anyone should accord any weight to any value.

eyescreamcone

Why do we have a right to freedom of speech, but prosecute those who tweet horrible things about that poor girl in Wales.
Is it freedom of speech...but. ???

Peregrinus

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Why do we have a right to freedom of speech, but prosecute those who tweet horrible things about that poor girl in Wales.
Is it freedom of speech...but. ???

That's exactly the point that Gbear is making. To the extent that I get prosecuted for tweeting something, then I don't have a right to freedom of speech.

And I don't know anyone who asserts an absolute and unqualified right of freedom of speech. My right to free speech doesn't extend to me telling pejorative lies about you, for example, because you have a right to your good name and reputation. My right to free speech doesn't allow me to sell state secrets for profit. It doesn't allow me, as a lawyer or a doctor or a banker, to tell the world about my client's private affairs. It doesn't allow me to make false claims in advertising. It doesn't allow me to advertise, say, cigarettes in certain media. It doesn't allow me to sing your song in a public performance without paying you a royalty. It doesn't allow me to shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. It doesn't allow me to put up a public notice indicating that you will sell sexual favours at a modest rate, and inviting custom. And we could go on and on.

The point is, if you recognise more than one right, then rights are inevitably going to come into conflict, and the more rights you recognise - the more our discourse about public policy is conducted in the language of rights - the more this will happen. The absolutist language of high-flown principal that we tend to use in relation to rights isn't an accurate reflection of the highly conditional, highly nuanced reality.

Or, in other words, my "right to free speech" is in no sense a guarantee that I can always speak freely without repercussions or restraints. At most, it's an acknowledgement of the fact that repercussions or restraints on my speech need some definite justification. But it gives us little help as to what that justification might be.

Dades

^^ Great post.

mikhail

Peregrinus wrote: »

That's exactly the point that Gbear is making. To the extent that I get prosecuted for tweeting something, then I don't have a right to freedom of speech.

And I don't know anyone who asserts an absolute and unqualified right of freedom of speech. My right to free speech doesn't extend to me telling pejorative lies about you, for example, because you have a right to your good name and reputation. My right to free speech doesn't allow me to sell state secrets for profit. It doesn't allow me, as a lawyer or a doctor or a banker, to tell the world about my client's private affairs. It doesn't allow me to make false claims in advertising. It doesn't allow me to advertise, say, cigarettes in certain media. It doesn't allow me to sing your song in a public performance without paying you a royalty. It doesn't allow me to shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. It doesn't allow me to put up a public notice indicating that you will sell sexual favours at a modest rate, and inviting custom. And we could go on and on.

The point is, if you recognise more than one right, then rights are inevitably going to come into conflict, and the more rights you recognise - the more our discourse about public policy is conducted in the language of rights - the more this will happen. The absolutist language of high-flown principal that we tend to use in relation to rights isn't an accurate reflection of the highly conditional, highly nuanced reality.

Or, in other words, my "right to free speech" is in no sense a guarantee that I can always speak freely without repercussions or restraints. At most, it's an acknowledgement of the fact that repercussions or restraints on my speech need some definite justification. But it gives us little help as to what that justification might be.

You clearly have no idea what freedom of speech means. Freedom of speech means that you are free to say something someone else finds disagreeable. It does not mean that you are free to say something that causes harm.

A tasteless joke about a missing child is clearly in the former category, and the prosecution of a 20 year old guy in England for a joke made on his own facebook wall is an unjustifiable breech of his rights in response to an emotion reaction that the law should be above.

Gbear

I think there might be some sensible boundary to be set between things that are "real" and things that are "man-made". I don't have any better words to describe them so bear with me.


"Real" things would be people. People have integrity and rights because we know (as much as we can know anything) that people exist.
Something more abstract - human sensibility perhaps, or "the greater good" might come in to the "man-made" category.

So making it a right to bodily integrity, life and that sort of thing makes sense in that regard.
However, any attempt to legislate for what are essentially the rights of abstract concepts - outlawing homosexuality because it goes against a kind of morality or outlawing drugs because they go against the "greater good" wouldn't make sense.


I think that personal freedom creates a better society in practice but also, I don't have any reverential notions towards society or culture in and of themselves.
I have no reason to want to defend them and, indeed, I'd happily attack these institutions if it means improving individuals' lives.

This fundamental problem arises when I'm debating with, for example, some religious people.
In some Muslim countries (like Saudi Arabia) they have decency police that go around the place protecting their notion of decency. It's so bloody hard to debate with someone in favour of this because you both value different things ("the individual" vs. "the greater good") so you just talk past each other.

Is there a fundamental line of argument that really sets out why valuing the individual is best?

Peregrinus wrote: »

For example, if you and I agree that the primary role of the state is to maximise individual freedom of action, that will tend to create a wider space in which we can discern rights that we both agree must be respected.

So perhaps a notion along the lines that individuals are the "lowest common denominator" of all societies and they all have their own inherent value means that it's more important to value their freedoms first and foremost?

Peregrinus

mikhail wrote: »

You clearly have no idea what freedom of speech means. Freedom of speech means that you are free to say something someone else finds disagreeable. It does not mean that you are free to say something that causes harm.

A tasteless joke about a missing child is clearly in the former category, and the prosecution of a 20 year old guy in England for a joke made on his own facebook wall is an unjustifiable breech of his rights in response to an emotion reaction that the law should be above.

Mate, first of all you are saying that "freedom of speech" actually means "freedom of harmless speech", i.e. speech which does not cause harm. Already that's a sigfnificant qualification on the notion of freedom of speech. And furthermore you are abitrarly taking a particular kind of harm and labelling it as not-harm.

This is incoherent. You don't believe in freedom of speech any more than anyone else; you're just in denial about it.

MrPudding

mikhail wrote: »

You clearly have no idea what freedom of speech means. Freedom of speech means that you are free to say something someone else finds disagreeable. It does not mean that you are free to say something that causes harm.

A tasteless joke about a missing child is clearly in the former category, and the prosecution of a 20 year old guy in England for a joke made on his own facebook wall is an unjustifiable breech of his rights in response to an emotion reaction that the law should be above.

Whilst I tend not to agree with very much Peregrinus says, I think he has a very good idea of what freedom of speech is, possible a better idea than you have.

Freedom of speech is, as Peregrinus points out, as qualified right. There is no absolute right to freedom of speech. His example of shouting fire in a crowed theatre is probably the most famous example, and it comes from a case in the US which arguably has some of the strongest right to freedom of speech.

Your freedom of speech is restricted. In very simplistic terms, you are free to say whatever you want, so long as what you say does not break any laws. So then we have you example of the guy what made the April "joke." Unfortunately for him he has arguable breached s127 of the Communications Act 2003, in that he has sent a message that is grossly offensive. Of course, it will be up to the CPS to prove that message / joke was grossly offensive though it test is something along the lines of, "would it cause grossly offensive to the persons it relates to, who may not be the recipients."

So no, we do not have an unfettered right to be offensive any more than we have an unfettered right to freedom of speech. You may agree with that or not, but that is how it is.

MrP

Peregrinus

Gbear wrote: »

I think there might be some sensible boundary to be set between things that are "real" and things that are "man-made". I don't have any better words to describe them so bear with me.


"Real" things would be people. People have integrity and rights because we know (as much as we can know anything) that people exist.
Something more abstract - human sensibility perhaps, or "the greater good" might come in to the "man-made" category.

So making it a right to bodily integrity, life and that sort of thing makes sense in that regard.
However, any attempt to legislate for what are essentially the rights of abstract concepts - outlawing homosexuality because it goes against a kind of morality or outlawing drugs because they go against the "greater good" wouldn't make sense.

This isn't going to work, Gbear. I don't know anyone who advocates outlawing drugs because "they go against the greater good"; do you? All the advocacy I've seen on this point comes down to arguments that drugs cause harm in very concrete ways. Whether they do or not is an empirical question, and clearly the answer may be different for different drugs, but this is certainly not an "unreal" argument.

And, on the wider scale, I'm not attracted by your "real" versus "man-made" distinction. A concept like integrity is quite plainly man-made, as are artefacts like money. Indeed, the notion of freedom is a human construct, as indeed is the notion of "rights". If we argue that we need respect only real things and not man-made things, then we need not respect personal rights, which I think is kind of self-defeating.

Gbear wrote: »

I think that personal freedom creates a better society in practice but also, I don't have any reverential notions towards society or culture in and of themselves.
I have no reason to want to defend them and, indeed, I'd happily attack these institutions if it means improving individuals' lives.

This fundamental problem arises when I'm debating with, for example, some religious people.
In some Muslim countries (like Saudi Arabia) they have decency police that go around the place protecting their notion of decency. It's so bloody hard to debate with someone in favour of this because you both value different things ("the individual" vs. "the greater good") so you just talk past each other.

We have decency police here too, as you'll discover if you walk down O'Connell Street in the nip, or try to have sex in a public place. Our standards of what is decent or indecent differ from those of the Saudis, but I can;t see any argument that ours have some objective validity while theirs are just a subjective preference.

Gbear wrote: »

Is there a fundamental line of argument that really sets out why valuing the individual is best?

So perhaps a notion along the lines that individuals are the "lowest common denominator" of all societies and they all have their own inherent value means that it's more important to value their freedoms first and foremost?

Possibly. But if you find someone who doesn't agree with this, can you advance any argument as to why he should?

And, even if you do, you won't go too far before you find that you and your friend have different understandings of which freedoms matter. Classical liberalism (which is really where we get rights language from) has traditionally stressed the freedom to pursue economic/material advantage and the American right, say, are very strong on this. Others might argue that we are not truly free unless we enjoy the opportunities given to us by education and health, and providing us with education and healthcare is therefore a good reason to curtail our economic freedoms (by taxing us to pay for these things). Both sides in this debate are arguing for the freedom of the individual, but they prioritise different kinds of freedom in different ways (and in fact in western society this is probably the most common source of disagreement over rights).

mikhail

Peregrinus wrote: »

Mate, first of all you are saying that "freedom of speech" actually means "freedom of harmless speech", i.e. speech which does not cause harm. Already that's a sigfnificant qualification on the notion of freedom of speech. And furthermore you are abitrarly taking a particular kind of harm and labelling it as not-harm.

This is incoherent. You don't believe in freedom of speech any more than anyone else; you're just in denial about it.

I believe that when a nation makes offending someone a crime, then there is no rational basis whatsoever for claiming that nation has freedom of speech.

Daftendirekt

When building a 'hierarchy of rights' it's important to look at the real world consequences of prioritising certain rights over others. We value freedom of speech over freedom from offence because the silencing of dissenting voices can cause more tangible and substantial problems for a greater number of individuals.

What would happen in an organisation where criticism of management and co-workers is forbidden? Bad habits and working practices would become entrenched and people would have less opportunity to refine their skills or grow in their jobs. Such an organisation could expect stagnation at best, and decline at worst.

On the other hand, in an organisation where constructive criticism is encouraged, employees could expect to improve continuously, bad practices could be weeded out more easily and the organisation as a whole would be more likely to flourish.

I don't agree that it's a case of the individual good versus the greater good. IMO, the greater good is a very utilitarian concept - the greatest benefit for the greatest number of individuals over a longer time frame than we'd usually deal with.

SeanW

I'm with Pat Condell on this one:

"You have rights. Your beliefs do not."

robindch

mikhail wrote: »

I believe that when a nation makes offending someone a crime, then there is no rational basis whatsoever for claiming that nation has freedom of speech.

Up to a point, I agree with you, but it's only a very limited point. I haven't heard what this guy said, nor will I google it, probably because -- as the dad of a desperately similar five-year old girl -- I expect I'd want to locate this idiot and permanently rearrange his head.

In this, I'm sticking to A+A's general guidelines -- be as rude as you want about whatever ideas you want, but don't insult people, or at least, not without a cracking good reason. Because I believe that if the honor or memory of a private person is unreasonably insulted, then it's legitimate for that person or their successors to demand a public and apologetic retraction, or have the state sanction the person who made the insult.

There's an assumption of innocence within most legal systems, and assuming the honor of a state's citizens is a corollary of that assumption.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

In this, I'm sticking to A+A's general guidelines -- be as rude as you want about whatever ideas you want, but don't insult people, or at least, not without a cracking good reason. Because I believe that if the honor or memory of a private person is unreasonably insulted, then it's legitimate for that person or their successors to demand a public and apologetic retraction, or have the state sanction the person who made the insult.

There's an assumption of innocence within most legal systems, and assuming the honor of a state's citizens is a corollary of that assumption.

(I started a thread a while back in Humanities on this very issue, and I posted in it today about Matthew Woods — the 20 year old man who has been imprisoned for 12 weeks for his controversial and distasteful "jokes" on Facebook about April Jones and Madeleine McCann.)

I can completely sympathise with the position you hold on this — it's the position most people seem to hold. I have a fundamental disagreement with it, though. I cannot agree that it should be the state's duty to protect individuals from being offended, nor should the state, as a consequence of this protection, prosecute and imprison those who it deems to have caused "great" offence or moral outrage. I cannot reconcile offence with criminalisation, however great the offence caused is deemed to be. To use an over-used term, the state should not be a "nanny state" which concerns itself with offence being caused, or those who cause offence. The "right" not to be offended is not an intrinsic right, in my opinion. People have a right to their good name, which is why libel laws are important, but this doesn't extend to protection from offence.

robindch

gvn wrote: »

The "right" not to be offended is not an intrinsic right, in my opinion.

I'm not referring to a "right" not to be offended, but to an assumption, backed by the sate, of the decency and honor of its citizens; in much the same way as the state assumes the innocence of people before it for trial. And that people who deny that assumption of decency should be called to demonstrate publicly that their contention is true, or as above, publicly and apologetically retract what they said, or suffer some sanction if they don't. Similarly, the right of free speech should be balanced, to the greatest extent possible, by the responsibility to use it fairly and decently.

There's a big difference between saying "atheism is dishonest" and "you are dishonest". The first is ok as far as I'm concerned; but for the second, the state should stand in, if the insultee wants, and require that the insulter proves the contention it in court or publicly retract it -- that's what libel laws are for.

Mr Woods appears to have failed to retract what I've no doubt are grossly offensive comments about a recently murdered child, so I'm happy -- indeed, I'm thrilled -- he's going to spend several months facing at a concrete wall and considering what I hope and trust will be a bleak immediate future. Next time, perhaps Mr Woods might think twice before publicly insulting the memory of a murdered child for no reason other than his own inability to make people laugh.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

I'm not referring to a "right" not to be offended, but to an assumption, backed by the sate, of the decency and honor of its citizens; in much the same way as the state assumes the innocence of people before it for trial. And that people who deny that assumption of decency should be called to demonstrate publicly that their contention is true, or as above, publicly and apologetically retract what they said, or suffer some sanction if they don't. Similarly, the right of free speech should be balanced, to the greatest extent possible, by the responsibility to use it fairly and decently.

I don't exactly agree with the above, but I appreciate the point and the (admirable) intention behind it. I have a fundamental disagreement with the state concerning itself with matters of decency — I simply believe that it's none of its business. Prosecution and imprisonment aren't the best responses to offensive material or indecency: criticism is.

In any case, Matthew Woods wasn't prosecuted for making factually incorrect statements about April; he was prosecuted for "sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive." This is markedly different to what you outline above: what you outline is closer to a libel lawsuit than a prosecution on the basis that gross offence was caused.

There's a big difference between saying "atheism is dishonest" and "you are dishonest". The first is ok as far as I'm concerned; but for the second, the state should stand in, if the insultee wants, and require that the insulter proves the contention it in court or publicly retract it -- that's what libel laws are for.

I cannot agree that an insultee should be able to bring an insulter to court — in all cases, at least. If I call you, say, a gobshite (which you're not ), and my doing so deeply offends you, I should not have the prospect of a prison sentence looming over my head. There's a distinct difference between an individual being offended by some action or remark of another, and an individual expressing a libellous remark about another. If I libel you, yes, you should be able to bring me to court; if you're offended by a (distasteful) joke I make, then no, you should not be able to bring me to court. There's a certain overlap between the two, but the two are not equivalent. I'd contend that Matthew Woods is guilty of the latter — of causing offence, which is what he was prosecuted for — and not the former — of being guilty of libel against April Jones (who is, in any case, upsettingly, dead, so libel doesn't apply).

Mr Woods appears to have failed to retract what I've no doubt are grossly offensive comments about a recently murdered child, so I'm happy -- indeed, I'm thrilled -- he's going to spend several months facing at a concrete wall and considering what I hope and trust will be a bleak immediate future. Next time, perhaps Mr Woods might think twice before publicly insulting the memory of a murdered child for no reason other than his own inability to make people laugh.

If you read the HuffPost article (linked to in the thread in Humanities) it states that Woods is remorseful and regretful over what he has done. That's beside the point, though.

He was prosecuted for "sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive." Not for libel, nor for something tantamount or equivalent to libel, but for sending an offensive message.

I suspect we might not disagree as much as it seems. If libel was to be clearly defined, and expressing an offensive remark defined, and a distinction drawn between the two, then we might agree more. It's important not to conflate libel with the expression of offensive remarks or messages — this would be very easy to do.

P.S. I do agree that his remarks were horrible. But for that I believe he should be criticised, not imprisoned.

P.P.S. I'm sorry to drag this thread (slightly) off-topic. If this is more suited to the thread in Humanities then, by all means, reply to me there. If you're happy with it being left here then that's good, too.

decimatio

robindch wrote: »

Mr Woods appears to have failed to retract what I've no doubt are grossly offensive comments about a recently murdered child, so I'm happy -- indeed, I'm thrilled -- he's going to spend several months facing at a concrete wall and considering what I hope and trust will be a bleak immediate future. Next time, perhaps Mr Woods might think twice before publicly insulting the memory of a murdered child for no reason other than his own inability to make people laugh.

I'm not a father, yet, but I do have a wonderful niece a little older than this girl so I can go a little way towards knowing how someone might feel in this situation.

So I can sympatheise but at the same time I absolutely disagree.

The problem is that when you start down this road of denying anyone the right to say anything then where does it lead? Who do you trust to decide what can or can't be heard?

How far do you think "offensive language used against a murdered 5 year old" is away from "offensive language against my prophet?" or "offensive language against my beliefs".

Robin, you said that you didn't google what he said but you trust that it was offensive. It's your right to choose to not listen to it but it's of paramount importance that we have that choice.

And that's not even opening the book on what different people find offensive. For example if someone said "God bless her, she's in a better place now" that would offend me, it really makes me angry actually. But do you think for a second that society these days would label it as offensive?

In France and other countries it's illegal, actually illegal, to deny the holocaust. Now I don't for a second deny it nor have I any desire to hear a holocaust denier speak on the subject but that's a completely different question from whether or not he has the right to speak and I have the right to listen if I so choose.

I live in a country where its not only illegal to state something false about someone but its also illegal to state something true about them if what I said is damaging to their character or reputation. Can you wrap your head around that?

Now that's not to say that anyone can say or do anything anywhere. People should be allowed to shout "fire" in a theatre without legal repercussions but that doesn't mean that the theatre has to allow that individual to remain there or admit them next time. A theatre is a private location where you agree to abide by their rules.

The same goes for confidentiality agreements or doctor patient relations etc. By entering such a relationship you have explicity agreed not to exercise your right of free speech on that persons privacy and you have agreed to submit to the repercussions of such actions. This is not a curtailment of free speech.

People claim to be and are offended all the time and they have the right to be offended all they like. But their offense doesn't mean someone else doesnt have the right to speak offensively.

Its the people whom we disagree with the most whose speech should be protected the most.

Peregrinus

I haven’t looked at the Woods case, and have no fixed view as to whether he should, or should not, have been prosecuted.

But the question raised by the OP doesn’t relate specifically to freedom of speech; it’s more general that that. When we acknowledge two (or more) moral rights which we feel the law ought to reflect and uphold, and when those rights come into conflict or into tension, how do we prioritise them? Which must be subordinated to the other?

And the question “how do we prioritise competing rights?” could itself be understood in two ways. It could mean “how ought we to prioritise rights?” Or it could be “how dow we, in practice, prioritise competing rights?”.

I suspect what we do in practice is that we follow a moral instinct. All rights protect values, and we discover which value we hold more dearly by observing which right we want to prioritise. Either for our own satisfaction or in response to someone who challenges us, we may than go on and try to justify our moral instinct by employing “rights” language to explain it, but I don’t think we necessarily have to do that. Nor is that always the best way of explaining our position

Consider robindch’s comment (in post #14) about the Wood case:

robindch wrote: »

. . . I believe that if the honor or memory of a private person is unreasonably insulted, then it's legitimate for that person or their successors to demand a public and apologetic retraction, or have the state sanction the person who made the insult.

There;s nothing about “rights” in there and, while you could reframe the point by using “rights” language if you put your mind to it, I don’t think that would necessarily be a more accurate or clearer way of expressing the point.


And robindch amplifies the point in post #16:

robindch wrote: »

I'm not referring to a "right" not to be offended, but to an assumption, backed by the sate, of the decency and honor of its citizens; in much the same way as the state assumes the innocence of people before it for trial. And that people who deny that assumption of decency should be called to demonstrate publicly that their contention is true, or as above, publicly and apologetically retract what they said, or suffer some sanction if they don't. Similarly, the right of free speech should be balanced, to the greatest extent possible, by the responsibility to use it fairly and decently.

Similar views might be expressed in connection with other controversies, e.g. how to we respond to the Fred Phelps Christian hate group picketing funerals to tell us that "God hates fags"?

I appreciate Gbear’s concern for the individual, but there’s another dimension to the moral question here. A functioning and healthy society requires not just respect for the individual but also a degree of solidarity. We simply have to accord one another at least a basic level of respect, and observe a certain level of decency in our dealings with one another, and if enough people fail to do this seriously enough and consistently enough then social and communal relationships are degraded to a point where we all suffer. A rule of simply not physically or economically injuring my neighbour is not a sufficient basis for a functioning human society; we are social animals, and if we are to be healthy and whole we need both to respect and value others and to be respected and valued by them.

That’s the problem with the actions of Fred Phelps or (from what I superficially gather) this Woods bloke; they manifest such a degree of disdain and contempt for others as to amount to an attack on the glue that holds society together, and we don’t feel that we should let this go unremarked or unsanctioned.

I’m conscious that I’m on dangerous ground here, because a stronger version of this argument is used to justify, e.g., blasphemy laws, and I’ve no particular desire to do that. But the truth, I think, is that none of us do operate out of a paradigm in which the role and actions of the state are entirely confined to upholding individual rights. We’re not just a bunch of individuals; we are also a community, and the health of the community requires certain levels of mutual respect, solidarity, decency, dignity and other things which each of us can only get from others. Intuitively, we know this. Very often, our moral instinct leads us to circumscribe the exercise of individual rights because of this need to protect social relationships, and I think probably we ought to explain our position in that way, rather than to try to frame it in terms of a competing individual right.

ShooterSF

The idea that someone faces jail time for posting something offensive is right up there with the idea that someone could face jail time for drawing Mo imo. Even the argument I meet for outlawing "hate speech" is eerily similar. "Oh but look at how badly the public react" they claim. Well then hold the public responsible if they break the law. Just because it's easier to punish one person for causing 100 to break the law doesn't make the right thing to do. You have a right to be offended by someone, a right to choose not to interact with them any more, a right to tell them what you think of them but not a right to silence them or punish them.

Gbear

I'm using the dark Boards skin so I got rid of your colour change to be able to read the text.

Peregrinus wrote: »

I appreciate Gbear’s concern for the individual, but there’s another dimension to the moral question here. A functioning and healthy society requires not just respect for the individual but also a degree of solidarity. We simply have to accord one another at least a basic level of respect, and observe a certain level of decency in our dealings with one another, and if enough people fail to do this seriously enough and consistently enough then social and communal relationships are degraded to a point where we all suffer. A rule of simply not physically or economically injuring my neighbour is not a sufficient basis for a functioning human society; we are social animals, and if we are to be healthy and whole we need both to respect and value others and to be respected and valued by them.

That’s the problem with the actions of Fred Phelps or (from what I superficially gather) this Woods bloke; they manifest such a degree of disdain and contempt for others as to amount to an attack on the glue that holds society together, and we don’t feel that we should let this go unremarked or unsanctioned.

I absolutely agree that we have to be nice to one another for society to work but to justify legislating that into place is a different matter entirely.

Generally speaking people aren't dicks to each other most of the time. There will be outliers but I don't see how believing and saying that women are subordinate to men based on your religion can be argued as being any less antagonising or offensive than "god hates fags" or, indeed, be seen as being fundamentally different from racist speech or anything else that people seem keen to ban.

Fred Phelps and other insane **** pay the price for being that way. They're basically pariahs.

Indeed, I can't see any reason why any speech whose crime is solely one of giving offence can legitimately be prohibited - people have the capability to be legitimately offended by literally anything and there is no rational basis on which to argue that one form of offense supersedes another (given that the only person capable of gauging the offence is the one experiencing it).
The level of subjectivity in determining offence is extreme in this case and there should be no distinction between words in this sense on a legal level.


The simple fact that people are becoming less ignorant is decreasing many social ills. I don't think it's necessary to legislate for them and I don't think that is any of the state's business.
All I want is from government is to protect our rights and then get the **** out of society's way.

Which brings us back to the argument of which rights trump which. :pac:
The above only works if you believe that the right to offend does not supersede freedom of speech.

And I do not believe that you can hold the opinion that some offensive speech should be outlawed and not all offensive speech.
And unless you can objectively gauge offense (like you can objectively gauge how you broke somebody's arm, with an x-ray) then I don't think it matters either way.

Peregrinus

Couple of thoughts:

First, sorry about the colour problem. I didn’t add any colour to my post, and it’s showing up perfectly normally on my screen. I write my posts in MS Word (boo! hiss!) and then cut-and-paste into the browser (I’m tired of losing stuff when browsers freeze or crash) so perhaps something is going pear-shaped along the way.

Secondly, I appreciate that drawing lines to measure offensiveness is extremely difficult. That doesn’t mean, though that there is no distinction between tolerable and intolerable offensiveness, or that drawing the distinction is unimportant. In life we have to draw difficult distinctions all the time; it’s part of the human condition. And, while it presents difficulties when we try to do it in the legal sphere, they are not insurmountable difficulties. We already have to deal with fairly nebulous concepts when the law tries to deal with obscenity, or to draw a distinction between material suitable only for adults and material which can be freely marketed to all, or when courts have to judge - which they do all the time - whether behaviour is “unconscionable” or “unreasonable” or whether harm is “reasonably foreseeable”, or whatever. Questions like these are usually resolved by appealing to community standards. It can be done.

Secondly, I’m unconvinced that the law can take account of physical harm, and of financial harm, but that emotional harm is somehow forever outside the purview of the law, and must be ignored. There’s no obvious reason why this should be so, is there? Emotional harm can be very, very destructive - much more so than financial harm. Look at the suicide rate among gay teens, for example. Look at the consequences of cyberbullying. Look at the kids who suffered emotional, but not physical, abuse while in state care, or in church institutions (or both), and the price they pay, often throughout their lives. You can take the view that free speech is of such paramount importance that all this destruction and death is just a price we have to pay to avoid infringing it but, to put it no higher, that’s not self-evidently true. A case has to be made why my right to belittle and denigrate you, or the community to which you belong, trumps your right to self-esteem and sound mental health. I don’t see anyone making that case in this thread; the sanctity of free speech, so far, has been largely treated as an article of faith.

If you accept that phenomena like cyberbullying or the emotional abuse of children do justify restrictions on freedom of speech, then you do accept that, at least some of the time, the prospect of emotional distress, without any physical or financial injury, is enough to warrant restrictions on free speech, and after that we are only discussing where exactly to draw the line - what kind of distress does, and what does not, justify restrictions on speech. As you point out, it’s a difficult line to draw, and perhaps an even more difficult line to draw rightly. It doesn’t follow, though, that we must abandon the attempt.

decimatio

Christopher Hitchens on Free Speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoOfRog1EM

Or from a debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw3dDbc1BHE

MrPudding

Whilst the free speech debate is interesting, I personally think some of the other conflicts are more interesting.

Freedom of religion versus freedom not to be discriminated against. This is a very interesting area and the ensuing conflicts raise interesting questions.

MrP

Gbear

Peregrinus wrote: »

Couple of thoughts:

First, sorry about the colour problem. I didn’t add any colour to my post, and it’s showing up perfectly normally on my screen. I write my posts in MS Word (boo! hiss!) an

[...]

al injury, is enough to warrant restrictions on free speech, and after that we are only discussing where exactly to draw the line - what kind of distress does, and what does not, justify restrictions on speech. As you point out, it’s a difficult line to draw, and perhaps an even more difficult line to draw rightly. It doesn’t follow, though, that we must abandon the attempt.

I do want to reply to this at some point but I've been a bit busy lately!:)

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

You can take the view that free speech is of such paramount importance that all this destruction and death is just a price we have to pay to avoid infringing it but, to put it no higher, that’s not self-evidently true. A case has to be made why my right to belittle and denigrate you, or the community to which you belong, trumps your right to self-esteem and sound mental health. I don’t see anyone making that case in this thread; the sanctity of free speech, so far, has been largely treated as an article of faith.

To be fair, a few people have said that people have rights, but ideas do not. There is no unanimous feeling here that free speech should be unlimited.
I think you are trying to slip in religion here, as something that needs protection from being offended. (See the bolded bit quoted above)
But religion is only an idea.

BTW I'm not seeing any strange shades or colours in the text of your posts.


On the subject of the jokes made in poor taste by Mr Woods on twitter or whatever; I personally am not offended by them, because I choose not to look them up. Therefore I would not agree with locking him up.

Menchen said;
"I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. ... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors."

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

To be fair, a few people have said that people have rights, but ideas do not. There is no unanimous feeling here that free speech should be unlimited.
I think you are trying to slip in religion here, as something that needs protection from being offended. (See the bolded bit quoted above)
But religion is only an idea.

I wasn’t, honestly. Cross my heart. What I had in mind when I wrote that bit was the kind of homophobic rhetoric that gets directed at the gay community, and the effect that can have on the self-esteem, and even self-acceptance, of a young person who is beginning to understand themselves as gay, but who doesn’t know any gay people they can talk to or even emulate (or, at any rate, any people they know to be gay). It seems to me that homophobic speech that’s not directed at identifiable individuals is still capable of harming people, and sometimes harming them very seriously. Suicide, self-harm and addiction rates among gay teens are worryingly high, and that doesn’t come from nowhere.

But, since you mention religion (and since MrPudding has brought it up in post #24) . . .

I admit I’m a little impatient with the trope that religion is an idea, and ideas don’t have any rights. It’s fatuous nonsense, even more so than the National Rifle Association slogan that “guns don’t kill people; people do”. Yes, religion is an idea - or, at least, it involves ideas. But so is gender identity. So is nationhood. If I can attack religious people because “religion is just an idea”, then I have the same justification for attacking gays, or Pakistanis.

For that matter freedom of speech is an idea. In fact, freedom of any kind is an idea. If ideas can’t enjoy legal protection, them logically freedom of speech can’t enjoy legal protection, can it?

The reason this trope is stupid is this; it treats “ideas” and “people” as unrelated. In fact we know that they are intimately related. Ideas do not drop from the heavens; they are created and expressed by people. And, conversely, people are profoundly influenced, shaped even, by ideas. The notion that you can attack ideas and not people is completely false, as can be illustrated by historical examples of attacks on, say, Judaism.

recedite wrote: »

On the subject of the jokes made in poor taste by Mr Woods on twitter or whatever; I personally am not offended by them, because I choose not to look them up. Therefore I would not agree with locking him up.

Well, you seem to be suggesting that if something doesn’t offend you, the law should not restrict or sanction it. But - no offence - why should the sensibilities of recedite be the standard here? If it doesn’t offend you, the fact that it offends others is irrelevant?

The test of our commitment to freedom, I think is not whether we defend our own freedoms, but whether we defend someone else’s - even when someone else’s freedom costs us something. The actions of the likes of Fred Phelps, say, are not directed at me; they are directed at other people, chosen as victims precisely because they are vulnerable - they are grieving, or mourning; or they are gay in a society which still seeks to marginalize and denigrate gays. Phelps is looking for someone vulnerable and wounded, and he is aiming to put his hands into the wound and rip it further open; he wants to infect, inflame and irritate it. I, as it happens, am not the wounded person. So if I defend Phelps’ freedom of speech no matter what the cost, I’m actually talking about a cost borne by someone else; someone already wounded; someone who because of his wounded condition might actually have some claim on my sympathy and support. And pretty much the same goes for what Mr Woods has allegedly done.

I’m not saying that it’s an open-and-shut moral case that the likes of Phelps and Woods and such must be silenced; it isn’t. I’m just saying that there is a cost to free speech, and we should acknowledge that cost and consider whether it is right to bear it - or, more pressingly, to require others to bear it. So far the defences of free speech that I’m seeing really don’t take this into account; they seem to be in denial about it, and they rest on unsupported assertions that the law should ignore any harm which is not physical or financial, or on evasive idiocies like “ideas have no rights”. I’m sure a better case can be made for freedom of speech, but we live in a society where it’s so much an article of faith that people are actually not encouraged to make that case.

recedite wrote: »

Menchen said;
"I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. ... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors."

I find this incoherent, I must say. Speech is a form of communication. Freedom of speech is meaningless unless it’s the freedom to speak to people. They can choose not to listen, of course, but if the inconvenience and irritation they feel at having to screen me out trumps my right to speak in the first place, then I’m afraid Menken is championing a pretty feeble version of freedom of speech.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, you seem to be suggesting that if something doesn’t offend you, the law should not restrict or sanction it. But - no offence - why should the sensibilities of recedite be the standard here? If it doesn’t offend you, the fact that it offends others is irrelevant?

Not at all, I'm just pointing out that it is within my power to be offended, or not to be offended by this material. I can choose to avoid it.
This also answers your other question re the Menchen quote, and the extent to which freedom of speech should be limited. For example, if the guy was following me around, repeating his offensive jokes, I would feel justified in punching him.
Re homosexuality; I don't accept that this compares with religion as being "just an idea." Unless you believe homosexuality is a lifestyle choice? No, in this case, if you attack the concept, you attack the person.
Its not the same as when a person adopts a political stance, or a religious outlook.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Re homosexuality; I don't accept that this compares with religion as being "just an idea." Unless you believe homosexuality is a lifestyle choice? No, in this case, if you attack the concept, you attack the person.

I didn't say homosexuality was just an idea; I said gender identity was an idea.

I'm not even sure I know what a "lifestyle choice" is, but I certainly wouldn't call homosexuality a lifestyle choice, any more than heterosexuality or indeed sexuality in general. But gender identity is a social construct; it involves not just the experience of homosexual (or heterosexual) attraction, but a whole set of ideas about how this defines you as a person, and a whole set of conventions about relationships and ways of expressing them. In that regard it's quite similar to religion or nationality. (And, like religion or nationality, it's not something you construct for yourself; it's a social construct.)

recedite

Well then, perhaps gender identity is fair game then.
I admit I sometimes laugh when I see girls who imitate barbie dolls a bit too closely, or macho-men swaggering around like peacocks.
Not to be confused with homophobia though.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Well then, perhaps gender identity is fair game then.
I admit I sometimes laugh when I see girls who imitate barbie dolls a bit too closely, or macho-men swaggering around like peacocks.
Not to be confused with homophobia though.

Make no mistake; if you attack "gays", you are attacking a gender identity. (For that matter, if you attack"straights", you are attacking gender identity.) Homophobia is largely a matter of discomfort with or hostility to someone else's gender identity.