Hate and the Harm Principle: John Stuart Mill and the Restriction of Hate Speech

• In Event: Valuing and Defending against Speech

Abstract

Among the prominent challenges and perils that democratic societies face is the rise of hate speech, both in person as well as online. In recent years, several scholars (e.g., Bell 2020; Brink 2001; Brown 2008) have argued that there is much in the work of John Stuart Mill that allows for (and indeed, likely requires) the legal restriction of hate speech. Mill’s harm principle, according to this body of work, permits the state to police and regulate expression that demeans, degrades, dehumanizes, or attacks the dignity of political minorities, even when there is no immediate threat of physical violence. In this paper, I push back against these recent efforts to find support for the legal restriction of hate speech in Mill’s work. Mill, I argue here, explicitly rules out the censoring and punishing of expression that does not pose an imminent risk of physical harm. His near-total opposition to the legal suppression of speech is explained by his skepticism about the ability of the state to limit itself to restricting harmful speech alone. Those who advocate for the legal restriction of hate speech, I argue, must hence look elsewhere for intellectual support. Mill’s thought clearly offers support for the arguments of those who maintain that combating hate speech in liberal democracies cannot take the form of legal censorship and proscription.

Author

• Prithviraj Datta, Franklin and Marshall College