Session 8:  States and Speech
Chair: Thomas Kane


“Does the State’s Use of Propaganda Erase Individual Responsibility? Paul Ricoeur and Arguing Ourselves Free of the chains of Idealogy”
Rachel Waterstradt
Department of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University, USA

Is the State ever any darn good or is it just a source of ideology and propaganda inciting hatred, violence and genocide/ethnic cleansing at one extreme, complacency, apathy and self-absorption at the other?  Can the state be held accountable for the actions of its citizens if they embrace that ideology and propaganda?  What is, and whose is, the evil of propaganda – the author, receptive listener or both?  Although the State very clearly is a separate entity from the totality of its citizens, there would have to be some interchange between the two, and in this interchange, we should be able to see the goodness or badness of the State.  This is most especially true when considering the State’s responsibility for atrocity, genocide and ethnic cleansing, actions that must be carried out by the citizens of the State, yet at its bidding and encouragement.  Paul Ricoeur’s exploration of the use of ideology, propaganda and manipulations of historical truth in Memory, History, and Forgetting illumine the dual nature of the responsibility for such radical distortions. His argument for the writing of history through personal and collective memory, to testimony, to the archive and corrections in the archive also shows how the distortion of history and the propaganda that follows come to be, but also show how their reversal is also possible.  Yet this shows a dual role for the State and the citizens: the State fosters and encourages a warped historical record that feeds a violent ideology and the individual citizens work to support that history, ideology and propaganda or act on its messages of hate and violence.  If the dual role exists in actuality, then the State might have provided the messages which encourage ethnic cleansing or genocide, but it was individual citizens who answered the call, and although the propaganda may mitigate some of the blame for the actions, it does not take on sole responsibility.  That responsibility must lie with the citizens or else the actions of those who chose to go against the machinery of the State and protect neighbors from violence become inexplicable.
Although the issue here is more geared toward the responsibility for genocide or ethnic cleansing, as written above, the issue also relates to propaganda inciting complacency, apathy and self-absorption – issues far more prevalent here in America, yet profoundly impacting those who live in states mired in violence.  Can our glad acceptance of our own propaganda be effaced as well? 

“I Hate Everything About You” – The Evil of Hate Speech Laws
David White
Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Canada

The rationale for laws prohibiting hate speech is twofold. First, promoting the hatred of people based on race, for example, is considered to be sufficiently evil separate from any other consequences it might have to warrant its prohibition. Second, promoting hatred against groups of people can help create or support a generally hostile social climate which can increase the likelihood of violent crimes being committed against members of those groups. The promotion of hatred has no identifiable benefits, so these harms are considered sufficient to justify legal restrictions.
The main argument against hate speech laws is based on the general concern that any limitation of speech can lead to restrictions on legitimate speech. Once the state begins to outlaw speech deemed to be undesirable, politically marginalized views can more easily be restricted. Defending the freedom of speech only means anything if one is willing to defend speech one most strongly disagrees with, thus only absolutely necessary limitations should be considered.
There is, however, a further and more subtle argument for allowing hate speech. When states create and enforce laws prohibiting hatred against some they tacitly support hatred against others. The Criminal Code of Canada makes it a criminal offense to incite hatred against people based on “colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” The law has been in existence for almost forty years, but it was only in 2004 that sexual orientation was added to the list of protected groups. This paper will examine (1) how its exclusion contributed to a hostile climate for non-heterosexuals in Canada, (2) how the present exemption from the law based on protecting religious speech continues to promote that climate, and (3) how limiting the number of protected groups continues to support the promotion of hatred against other groups based on characteristics such as gender, age and disability, for example.
The hate speech law in Canada has very rarely resulted in prosecution. Because of this, it can be argued that the law's value, if any, is as a symbolic rejection of hatred. But in addition to being an explicit voice against some evils, it has implicitly endorsed others. It will be argued that despite the Canadian government's desire to oppose hatred, it actually promotes it.

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Is Book-Burning Bad?
Ted Seto
Loyola Law School, USA

We commonly assert that we “should” be good and “should not” be bad. But we also say that we “should” respect the rule of law, equality, liberty, democracy, and the like. Ideally, a general theory of normativity would explain all shoulds and shouldn’ts. For the most part, however, contemporary ethical theories are more limited in scope. Exceptions exist, but none are fully satisfactory. Preference-satisfaction utilitarians, for example, can be read to claim that rule of law, equality, liberty, democracy, and the like should be valued because (but only to the extent that) a society in fact prefers them. Desires for rule of law, equality, liberty, democracy, and the like, they sometimes seem to assert, are “tastes,” having the same moral status as vanilla ice cream. Other consequentialists are more paternalistic, positing that societal happiness or welfare will be greater if people are secure, equal, free, and sovereign – even if the People themselves disagree. Even on this account, however, rule of law, equality, liberty, and democracy are instruments of convenience, not principles to be respected for their own sake. If torture, lynching, slavery, genocide, book-burning, and election-rigging will produce the greatest good for the greatest number, consequentialism implies, such actions are moral – indeed, they may be morally required. Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin were both political consequentialists.
Deontologists, by contrast, tend to speak of equality and liberty as “rights,” sometimes even as “natural” and therefore requiring no further justification: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Deontological political theory and deontological moral theory commonly invoke different justificatory foundations. As a result, when we try to integrate the two, we are often left with more questions than answers. Are rule of law, equality, liberty, and democracy “good” in the moral sense? If so, why? If not, how can punishment without trial, racism, slavery, and election-rigging be morally wrong? Deontologists lack even an agreed-upon base from which to begin analysis. Virtue ethics similarly tends to treat morality as separate from political theory. Aristotelian eudaimonia is easier to attain if people are secure and free; but security and freedom are not prerequisites to virtue, nor was Aristotle ever an advocate of equality or democracy.
This paper will apply a unified theory of normativity, founded in cultural evolutionary theory, to the problem of book-burning. Book-burning has had a largely unappreciated but profound impact on history, arguably retarding development in China, triggering the “dark ages” in Europe, and ensuring that the Americas would be inhabited solely by apparently indigenous peoples when Columbus arrived. Applying an expanded notion of normativity, the paper will conclude that book-burning is indeed “bad.”

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