Democratic Speech in Divided Times

Lepoutre, Maxime

doi:10.1093/oso/9780198869757.001.0001

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 135 publications

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“…An example of a negative style would be the fact-checking of harmful misinformation. By contrast, positively-styled counterspeech might involve highlighting true information, rather than rebutting falsehoods (Lepoutre, 2021). Admittedly, certain instances of counterspeech lie in an ambiguous location, between the negative and positive (Armas & Ruiz, 2021).…”

Section: Dimensions Of Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the victims of the harmful speech, or by non‐targeted addressees of the harmful utterance, or by mere bystanders. It can be performed by ordinary citizens, or by people in authoritative roles, including state actors acting on society's behalf (Brettschneider, 2012; Gelber, 2012; Lepoutre, 2021; Saul, 2021). Counterspeakers can speak out on their own, or as part of a coordinated group (Buerger, 2021; Friess et al., 2021; Fumagalli, 2021).…”

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But it can potentially also be used pre‐emptively, to inoculate audiences against future instances of harmful speech. In these cases, counterspeech helps counteract harm that would otherwise have arisen from future speech (Lepoutre, 2021; Tirrell, 2018). Another consideration is whether to adopt a more negative or positive style.…”

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Counterspeech

2022

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Counterspeech is communication that tries to counteract potential harm brought about by other speech. Theoretical interest in counterspeech partly derives from a libertarian ideal -as captured in the claim that the solution to bad speech is more speech -and partly from a recognition that well-meaning attempts to counteract harm through speech can easily misfire or backfire. Here we survey recent work on the question of what makes counterspeech effective at remedying or preventing harm, in those cases where it is effective, as well as work investigating when and why there is a duty to engage in counterspeech. We suggest that the most fruitful area for philosophical inquiry on this topic, currently, relates to the questions about efficacy. Specifically, we argue that there is a need for better frameworks for conceptualizing the efficacy of counterspeech. Philosophers have collaborative work to do, alongside social scientists, in developing these frameworks.

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Section: Dimensions Of Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is Counterspeech?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Counterspeech

2022

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“…The party helps to construct a conceptual viewpoint by which its voters can make sense of the political world. We use partisan labels and the testimony of political leaders as a useful heuristic for determining what to think about political issues (see Lepoutre 2021). In this way, party affiliation is treated as an effective means to circumvent one's political ignorance.…”

Section: We Must Avoid Politics To Achieve a Good Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

Is There a Duty to Speak Your Mind?

Hannon

2022

Social Epistemology

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Is it necessary that every single person on this planet expresses every single opinion that they have on every single thing that occurs all at the same time? Is that… is that necessary? Or to ask in a slightly different way, um, can… can anyone shut the f**k up? Can… can anyone, any… any… any one, any single one, can any one… shut the f**k up about anything-About any… any single thing? Can any single person shut the f**k up about any single thing for... an hour? You know, is that… is that possible?" -Bo Burnham, InsideMill's On Liberty. What makes Joshi's book important, however, is his focus on the ways in which social pressures prevent us from speaking our mind even when legal protections on free speech are in place. As Dewey (1981) reminds us, a mere legal guarantee of the civil liberty of free expression is of little avail if the daily freedom of communication, the give and take of ideas, is "choked by mutual suspicion, by abuse, by fear and hatred." Joshi emphasizes the very real costs of self-expression despite the legal protections on free speech. Thus, his book is ultimately about self-censorship and the ways it becomes entrenched.Joshi's defense of the duty to speak one's mind is worth serious consideration, especially in our current political environment. In this paper, I have three goals. First, I will reconstruct Joshi's argument for the claim that you have a duty to speak your mind. Second, I will discuss two surprising implications of his argument. Third, I will raise challenges to some of his main claims. Unlike many philosophical essays, Iwill not argue for a single unified thesis. Instead, I aim to present the ideas of Joshi's book and engage with them as a whole. The Duty to Speak Your MindDo we really want more people speaking their minds? Aren't we already drowning in the opinions of the uninformed masses? In 'Lie Witness News', a segment of the show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, people are asked their opinions about events that never happened, music bands that don't exist, and conflicts in fictional countries. Those interviewed claim that the U.S. has a duty to intervene in 'Zamunda', that President Trump not only won a debate that was still 24 hours away but also rode up to it on a motorcycle, and that it wasn't so bad when 'all the ponies drowned' during water polo at the Tokyo Olympics. We humans are an opinionated bunch, even on issues we know nothing about. 1According to Joshi, the duty to speak your mind is not a duty to say whatever you really think. When your grandmother gives you an ugly sweater for Christmas, you do not have a duty to tell her that you dislike it (39). So, what exactly does the duty to speak your mind amount to? The clearest articulation of this duty occurs in Chapter 2 of his book, where Joshi says:1 Aristotle believed we are social, political animals (i.e. 'zoon politikon'). But, as the evidence above makes clear, we are also opinionated animals . In Greek, it would be ζων δοξαστικόν, transliterated as 'zoon doxastikon', which means something like 'an animal that is full of...

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“…Think of devices such as "sneaky" presuppositions, including those aimed at unduly accommodating the authority of the speaker (Bach and Harnish 1979;Sbisà 1999;Langton 2015Langton , 2018Cepollaro 2020;Caponetto 2022); insinuations (Camp 2018(Camp , 2022Domínguez-Armas and Soria-Ruiz 2021;Oswald 2022); conversational exercitives (McGowan 2004); discursive distorsions (Kukla 2014); subordinating speech (Langton 1993;Maitra & McGowan 2012); dogwhistles and figleaves (Saul 2017(Saul , 2018(Saul , 2021; code words (Khoo 2017) and propagandistic discourse more in general (Stanley 2015) (for a recent collection of topics in this debate, see Khoo & Sterken 2021). The study of such linguistic tools also raises the question of how to resist them: the literature on counterspeech aims to develop ways to prevent or challenge such harmful conversational moves (Langton 2018;Lepoutre 2021;Lewiński 2022;Tirrell 2021;see Cepollaro et al 2023 for an overview).…”

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confidence: 99%