Propositional attitudes, harm and public hate speech situations: towards a maieutic approach
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885119836627 |
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Author | Corrado Fumagalli |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article EJPT
Propositional attitudes,
harm and public hate
speech situations:
towards a maieutic
approach
Corrado Fumagalli
Department of Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli, Italy
Abstract
In this article, I provide an argument against the idea that public hate-speech events are
harmful because they cause a discrete, traceable and harmful change in one’s proposi-
tional attitudes. To do so, I identify the essential conceptual architecture of public hate-
speech situations, I assess existing arguments for the direct and indirect harm of public
hate speech and I propose a novel way to approach public hate-speech situations: a
maieutic approach. On this perspective, public hate-speech events do not cause changes
in propositional attitudes, but rather, if successful, either such events bring a person’s
latent propositional attitudes into clear consciousness, or they play with propositional
attitudes speakers and their audience had prior to the public hate-speech situation.
Keywords
Common ground, harm, hate speech, Langton, Matsuda, propositional attitudes,
speech acts
Introduction
Here I repeat a well-worn question: if public hate speech is harmful, what is the
relevant wound? Some of the most sophisticated philosophical arguments say that
Corresponding author:
Corrado Fumagalli, Department of Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli, Viale Romania 32, 00197 Rome, Italy.
Email: cfumagalli@luiss.it
European Journal of Political Theory
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885119836627
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2021, Vol. 20(4) 609–630
public hate-speech events are harmful because they cause a discrete, traceable and
harmful change in one’s propositional attitudes (e.g. Delgado, 2018; Langton, 2012;
Matsuda, 2018; Seglow, 2016). I am sceptical that speech can harm, but, at least for
the first part of my argument, I shall proceed as if such harm were possible. So the
question is: do hate-speech events cause a traceable and discrete change in one’s
propositional attitudes? In this article, I claim it is very difficult to identify a trace-
able and discrete change in propositional attitudes when speakers and their audience
share the same common ground of propositional attitudes about the target group,
which is, more or less explicitly, assumed as a necessary condition for public hate
speech to accomplish something (Delgado, 2018; Langton, 2012; Matsuda, 2018;
Lawrence, 2018). As an alternative, I offer a more realistic proposal: a maieutic
approach to hate speech. From this perspective, public hate-speech events do not
cause changes in propositional attitudes, but rather, if successful, either such events
bring a person’s latent propositional attitudes into clear consciousness, or they play
with propositional attitudes speakers and their audience had prior to the public
hate-speech situation. Both possibilities, however, oppose the thesis that, by looking
at propositional attitudes, there is sufficient grounding for identifying the harm of
hate speech.
This article studies the relationship between changes in propositional attitudes
and the possible effect of public hate speech. I begin by making clear the assump-
tions of this article. In the third section, I construct a theoretical framework to
study public hate-speech situations. In the fourth section, I offer a critical discus-
sion of prevailing philosophical arguments for the harm of hate speech. In the fifth
section, I provide my alternative proposal: a maieutic approach to public hate
speech. The sixth section concludes the article.
1
Caveats
In this article, I maintain the distinction between speech in the ordinary sense and
speech in the technical sense (Maitra and McGowan, 2010; Schauer, 1979). Here,
‘speech’ is not only a vocal address delivered to a more or less wide audience.
I understand the word in the technical sense so that some actions that are not
speech in the ordinary sense (such as publishing a pamphlet, drawing murals,
writing libels) may fall within the scope of the article (Maitra and McGowan,
2010). Moreover, my focus is on speech that is public – that is, speech and actions
that address an audience and that may have a much broader resonance. More
specifically, my argument is on public speech that expresses hate. The definition of
‘hate speech’ is certainly a disputed matter, and setting the conceptual perimeter in
one or another direction may imply different normative positions (Maitra and
McGowan, 2010; Yong, 2011). By ‘public hate speech’, I refer to actions and
discourses that simultaneously deny the basic standing of individuals who
belong to a certain target group (Brettschneider, 2012; Delgado, 2018; Lepoutre,
2017; Matsuda, 2018; Seglow, 2016; Waldron, 2012) and aim to have an effect on
and beyond a certain audience (Delgado, 2018; Langton, 2012; Maitra and
610 European Journal of Political Theory 20(4)
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