Criminalizaing Hate In a Democracy

R. A. Duff, University of Minnesota School of Law & University of Stirling Department of Philosophy, and S. E. Marshall, University of Stirling, are publishing Criminalizing Hate? in Hate, Politics, Law (T. Brudholm & B. Schepelern Johansen, eds.; Oxford University Press, --) (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract.

This paper explores the role that criminal law might play in combating ‘hatred’, in particular whether and why we might appropriately criminalize ‘hatred’. In s. 1 it sketches some salient features of a liberal, democratic republic (as the kind of polity in which we can aspire to live, and whose citizens can be expected to be committed to combating ‘hatred’). In ss. 2-3, we then explain why a certain kind of ‘hatred’ should concern members of such a polity, as a distinctive civic vice manifested in a distinctive kind of civic wrong. In ss. 4-5, we discuss the limited but significant role that criminal law can play, in principle, in responding to such hatred. Finally, in s. 6, we say a little about the difficulties involved in turning ‘in principle’ into ‘in practice’, particularly those concerning offence definitions.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.