Abstract
We often think that individuals should live their lives in ways they are convinced are most appropriate to their self-understanding and beliefs. However, we equally think that this idea of living according to one’s convictions and self-understanding does not mean endorsement of forms of speech that injure the person and dignity of others. So far, the debate on hate speech has revolved around the justification of its protection and prohibition. In this article, we examine the idea of hate speech through the lens of authentic personhood, the foundation upon which most arguments for and against speech restriction are based. The aim is to demonstrate that the state restricting speech may be as justified as the one protecting it, seeing that in reality, hate speech both violates and vindicates authentic personhood. Given the nature and structure of “autonomy” and “speech,” a balancing approach to free expression and equality is preferable to outright protection or prohibition of hate speech.
Introduction
We often instinctively think that individuals should be left to live their lives in ways they are convinced are most suitable to their self-understanding and beliefs. Interestingly, however, we equally think that the idea of living according to one’s convictions and self-understanding does not mean endorsement of forms of speech that injure the dignity or the public standing of others. Tsesis (2009, p. 497) reasons that “any society that is committed to pluralism is of necessity obligated to safeguard individual expression while promoting egalitarian principles against harming others’ safety and dignity.”
Freedom of expression and racial equality are two cardinal democratic principles that operate at cross-purposes: one supports hate speech, while the other frowns at it (Gross & Kinder, 1998, p. 445). As the two operate at cross-purposes, interpersonal friction is bound to occur among the individuals whose orientations are divided along the line of these democratic values. In the face of the social tension necessitated by interpersonal friction, maintaining equality would mean that government has no power to treat the speech of similarly situated persons differently (Tsesis, 2009). However, this becomes problematic when the speech of one person threatens other people’s rights and by extension safety. A way of resolving these conflicting interests has to be sought. So far, the debate on hate speech has revolved around the justification of state restricting or protecting freedom of speech.
This article undertakes a critical examination of the idea of hate speech through the lens of some known indices of personhood, namely, dignity, freedom, equality, rationality, and autonomy. The aim is to determine the nature and structure of autonomy, personhood, and speech. While the article did not argue for either state protection or prohibition of hate speech beyond stating the truth about hate speech, it nevertheless proposed a balancing approach as a more viable alternative to either outright ban or protection of hate speech. The strategic importance of personhood to the hate speech debate will become better appreciated when we realize the fact that “authentic personhood” underlies the hate speech debate. In other words, this article will answer the question: does hate speech enhance or diminish authentic personhood?
The rest of the article is organized as follows: In section “Conceptualizing Hate Speech and Hate Speech Debates,” an exposition on theorizations and debates about “hate speech” is carried out. In this regard, the article argues that hate speech is an omnibus concept that defies consensus of opinion. Alexander Brown’s discourse on hate speech from the analytic tradition in philosophy buttresses this observation. Contending opinions and arguments regarding the desirability or otherwise of protecting hate speech are also examined. The aim is to unravel the underlying ideas and reasoning behind these contending opinions and arguments. It demonstrates that the liberal school’s position and arguments are driven by their commitment to what they consider as the eternal value of freedom, while the motivation for the position of their counterparts from the critical legal tradition is their recognition that every society is made up of competing interests that need to be balanced against the claims of free speech (section “Conceptualizing Hate Speech and Hate Speech Debates”). Section “On Personhood” focuses on personhood. Therein, the article tries to answer the question: protect or prohibit hate speech for whom? Armed with the assumption that personhood is at the core of the hate speech debate and that hate speech is capable of both enhancing and diminishing authentic personhood, the article undertakes a conceptual analysis of the nature and structure of “personhood.”
In section “Autonomy and Hate Speech,” the article examines the notions of autonomy and hate speech with a view to determining the relationship between the two. It argues that the meaning of autonomy vis-à-vis hate speech is paradoxical. Section “Hate Speech and Authentic Personhood” addresses the question as to whether hate speech enhances or violates authentic personhood. Authentic personhood in this context depicts existence or life characterized by the autonomous decisions and actions of the individual involved. As a result of the analysis of the preceding expositions on autonomy and hate speech, the article argues and demonstrates that hate speech has the propensity of both enhancing and diminishing personal authenticity. Section “Conclusion” offers a conclusion regarding what has been discussed so far about hate speech and authentic personhood.
Conceptualizing Hate Speech and Hate Speech Debates
The “sticks and stones” adage, which holds that “words can never hurt me,” could justifiably be said to be a thorny issue underpinning the hate speech restriction versus protection debate. Hate speech debate has divided scholars basically into two camps: the protectionists’ camp (championed mainly by the liberals) and the prohibitionists’ camp (led by those whom, for the purposes of this discourse, we choose to call the humanists). In-between these two central divides are scholars who adopt a balancing approach. While the liberals of the pro-hate speech protection extraction like Post, Dworkins, and Heinze find succor in the adage under reference, the adage has been challenged by the hate speech prohibitionists who argue that words can hurt as much as physical attacks (cf., Delgado & Stefancic, 2004; Langton, 1993; Matsuda, 1993; Waldron, 2010). Advocates of bans favor a view that stresses equal dignity, while opponents of bans favor a view that stresses individual liberty. How a person or society perceives hate speech determines his/its position on whether hate speech should be protected or prohibited. In what ways have institutions and individual scholars conceived hate speech?
Regarding hate speech and other discriminatory tendencies, the position of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is that: “[a]ny advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law” (cf., Article 20(2). This conceptualization portrays all forms of racist, sexist, antireligious, homophobic, or other intolerant speech as hate speech. Heinze (2006) observes that pronouncement of the ICCPR counts among the strongest condemnations of hate speech. Gelber and McNamara (2015, p. 324) observe that hate speech is “a term widely used, but lacking a single meaning.” This confirms the article’s earlier observation that hate speech, by its nature, appears to be an omnibus phenomenon. Some have conceived hate speech as speech that advocates or incites “act of discrimination or violence towards a group of people or an individual based on hatred for their nationality, race, or any immutable characteristics” (Catlin, 1993, p. 771). In the view of Matsuda (1993), Hylton (1996), and Barendt (2019a), hate speech depicts words that are used as weapon to stereotype, injure, and arouse anger, resentment, or fear in an individual because of the individual’s race, ethnic group, religion, or political affiliation. According to Matsuda (1993, p. 1), racist, sexist, homophobic, and similar epithets become “weapons to ambush, terrorize, wound, humiliate, and degrade.” Although Matsuda condemns hate speech in all its ramifications, she could not be said to be an extremist for she favors a balancing approach in addressing the issue of hate speech. Inasmuch as she wants hate speech regulated, she favors content-neutral regulation of speech. Rather than punish or regulate racist hate speech based on its content Matsuda recommends that we find a way of fitting it into existing free speech jurisprudence (cf., Auxier, 2007, p. 30). She is not even completely comfortable with this alternative approach, given the “slippery slope argument.” Thus, she says, “[t] his stretching ultimately weakens the first amendment fabric, creating neutral holes that remove protection for many forms of speech” (Matsuda, 1989, p. 2357). Interesting as Matsuda’s observations may appear to be, she is criticized for being a hypocrite, even if she was hypocritically ignorant. This is buttressed by the fact that in the
Delgado is, no doubt, prominent among the scholars who featured in the area of hate speech debate. His’ is a dignitary-based defense of hate speech prohibition, for he views hate speech as an affront on the dignity of the human person. Given that he considers hate speech as an intentional act, the target of which is to inflict wound or cause dignitary affront on the victim, Delgado (1982) argues forcefully that victims of hate speech are entitled to legal redress (cf., p. 145). He associates hate speech mostly with ethnicity and racism. From his numerous works and utterances, it is clear that he favors hate speech ban as a way of protecting the vulnerable minority. In their co-authored work, Delgado and Stefancic (2009, p. 370) express the view that the debate about hate speech is a call for an examination of our core values of equality and free speech in a setting in which they are in tension with each other. Delgado’s perception of and subsequent position on hate speech enjoyed the support of the likes of Jeremy Waldron who, himself, conceives hate speech as abuse, defamation, humiliation, discrimination, and violence on grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and in some cases sexual orientation. On the face value, it would appear that Waldron (2010) limited his idea of hate speech to only group defamation published with the intention to cause hate (cf., p. 1604). Assuming this is the case, one would have submitted that the implication of this way of conceiving hate speech is that Waldron did not give a blanket endorsement of hate speech criminalization. Besides, he could also be accused of restricting his regulation advocacy to only speeches targeted at group defamation published with the intention to cause hate. However, our understanding of him is that he endorses the “fighting-word doctrine” which expands the coast for hate speech regulation beyond the narrow confines of group defamation. Be that as it may, for us, the rationale for his advocacy for hate speech proscription is not even to protect the would-be victims from the immediate wounding effect of vicious slurs and epithets but to preserve and protect the dignity and reputation of the victims. Waldron’s position on hate speech represents a rejection of the dominant American view which places premium value on freedom of speech over and above personal feelings, honor, and dignity. His central thesis is that there is a public good to which all of us are entitled. This public good is the assurance that we will not be discriminated against or subjected to violence on the account of our racial, religious, or other vulnerable groups. Waldron is of the affirmation that hate speech destroys this public assurance. Elegant as Waldron’s thesis might be, his harm theory of hate speech has been criticized for not being clear on whether hate speech is a causal factor for harm, or constitutes harm by its very nature (cf., Barendt, 2019b). Whitten (2019) also has his reservations about the harm theory of speech in general. He argues that what is missing from the varied harm-oriented conceptions of hate speech are the ways in which intersubjective, recognition-sensitive relations influence the kind of harm likely to result from such an act. According to him, [u] nderstanding the central role of first-person experience is crucial, as, while a victim may have little influence in how their social status is impacted by such an act, the possibility for ‘speaking back’ requires that individuals are equipped with the conditions necessary to reject the authority claims of the speaker. (doi:10.1007/s10677-019-10003-z)
To this end, he uses the features of intersubjectivity to explore the potential ways in which an act of hate speech can be “robbed” of some of its harm by having its authority claims rejected by the victim. In his assessment of Waldron and, by extension, his co-travelers, Heinze (2016) observes that Waldron likened hate speech to a “slow-acting poison,” which, according to Heinze, “become (sic) a disfiguring part of the social environment.” While adding that Waldron purports that hate speech diminishes the equal respect and equal citizenship due to all members of society, Heinze interprets this to mean that problems posed by the physical environment, like quicksand or bee stings, take on the veneer of objectivity. They retain their harmful qualities irrespective of the political contexts in which they arise. Similarly, he reasons that the harm of a bee sting, and by extension the harm of hate speech, becomes the same in Sweden and in Saudi Arabia (cf., Heinze, 2016, p. 13). However, Heinze agrees with the prohibitionists that hateful expression is experienced in painful ways, he disagrees with them that such harm remains constant in its nature, irrespective of the social and political context in which it arises. Be that as it may, that Waldron advocated for hate speech regulation does not mean that he is ignorant of the value of protecting speech (both hateful and loving ones). Far from this, Waldron is of the opinion that a person’s ideas cannot be regulated on the basis that they offend others (cf., Blasi, 2017, p. 595; Lepoutre, 2017, p. 380).
In his own case, Lawrence (1990) compared the consequential harm of hate speech to a slap in the face. The injury involved here is instantaneous. His words: “[t]he experience of being called ‘nigger,’ ‘spic,’ ‘Jap,’ or ‘kike’ is like receiving a slap in the face. The injury is instantaneous” (pp. 67–68). Similarly, Bhikhu Parekh, a former member of the British House of Lords, once said that Although free speech is an important value, it is not the only one. Human dignity, equality, freedom to live without harassment and intimidation, social harmony, mutual respect, and protection of one’s good name and honour are also central to the good life and deserve to be safeguarded. Because these values conflict, either inherently or in particular contexts, they need to be balanced. (Parekh, 2012, p. 43)
He offers a characteristics-based conception of hate speech by viewing it as speech “directed against a specified or easily identifiable individual or, more commonly a group of individuals based on an arbitrary and normatively irrelevant feature” (Parekh, 2012, pp. 40, 41). For him, hate speech stigmatizes the target group in a way that implicitly or explicitly ascribes to it qualities that are widely regarded as highly undesirable to the extent that “the target group is viewed as an undesirable presence and a legitimate object of hostility” (Parekh, 2012). Coming still from the nature/feature-based characterization of hate speech, Brown (2017, p. 442) gave a compositional definition of hate speech, while conceiving the meaning of hate speech from the lens of the various techniques of conceptual philosophical analysis. According to Brown, up till the present, the popular usage of the term “hate speech” depicts it as speech, that among other things, supposedly violates the ideas of respect, solidarity, tolerance, dignity, equality, and so on. He, however, notes that critics of hate speech, including political and religious conservatives, consider the above claims as no more than crude attempts to close down/foreclose meaningful debate on what they believe are the evils of open-border policies, the failure of multiculturalism as a social experiment, as well as the lamentable decline of traditional moral values (Brown 443). The danger in conceptualizing hate speech only in terms of the act of people who harbor so much hatred or deep-seated animosity toward members of certain groups that they cannot help themselves but express their hatred outwardly through speech is that it may have the effect of pathologizing hate speech. That is, it implies that hate speech is abnormal or a symptom of mental pathology (Brown 446).
Brown examines hate speech from the point of view of analytical philosophy. In his analysis of hate speech, he depicts the ordinary concept hate speech as a compositional concept involving or composed of three more general concepts that may require decompositional analysis for a better understanding. A decompositional concept, according to Brown, is a concept that is made from or composed of other simpler concepts (Brown 461). Applying the tool of decomposition on hate speech would require breaking the concept into its component parts and to use these components to produce a precise definition. One way of doing this, he says, is to focus on the words that make up the term “hate speech.” To understand the meaning of hate speech in this manner, one has to understand the meaning of the two words “hate” and “speech” and then link those meanings to each other in some appropriate way (Brown 447).
On the strength of the above, Brown came up with the assumption that the concept “hate speech” is composed of the following three more basic simpler concepts: (a) speech or other expressive conduct, (b) groups or classes of persons identified by protected characteristics, and (c) emotions, feelings, or attitude of hate or hatred. Within this framework of analysis, something is hate speech only if it (a) is speech or expressive conduct, (b) concerns any member of groups or classes of persons identified by protected characteristics, and (c) involves or is intimately connected with emotions, feelings, or attitudes of hate or hatred (Brown 448). It follows from this that something is hate speech, if it satisfies conditions 1, 2, and 3. Brown rightly argues, the danger in conceiving hate speech in terms of a type of regulatable speech is that if what makes something hate speech is that it expresses the speaker’s emotions, feelings, or attitudes of hate or hatred, then chances are that any laws designed specifically to prohibit hate speech would thereby prohibit, by design, potentially important forms of expression and self-realization.
The trigger that brought the phenomenon of hate speech to the lime light of the current standard debate is the coming on board of the United States First Amendment free speech Absolutism (cf., Goodman, 2015; Monlar & Strossen, 2012). Goodman’s account of free speech history in America shows that prior to the Amendment protection of speech, American speech history has been characterized by an avalanche of laws restricting hateful, discriminating, or violence-inducing speech, plays, publications, drama, and so on (p. 205). It is instructive to note that underlying the debate on the desirability or otherwise of regulating hate speech are the values of individualism/liberalism and collectivism. Whereas the United States lead in the argument for hate speech protection is shaped principally by the principle of individualism characterized by personal autonomy, collective concern marked by universalism is the driving force behind the conception of free speech and the quest for its restriction as championed by some western and non-western countries such as Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, and South Africa, Kenya, and Malawi, respectively. Countries that are disposed to regulating hate speech place premium on the values of equality, honor, and dignity. Accordingly, they consider the protection of the right to personal honor and dignity, equality as well as protection of the young as an inviolable duty of the state. With the exception of America, almost all nations of the world today criminalize some form of expression owing to its hateful content (Heinze, 2006, p. 543, 2016, p. 5). Heinze opines that because most western democracies assume the existence of value pluralism, they expect their legislatures and courts to limit the democratic freedoms of some citizens to safeguard the interests of other citizens (Ibid). This, to us, is another way of saying that democracy has to be limited to sustain or strengthen the ideals of democracy. By way of comparism, he notes that hate speech bans like doctrines of separations of powers and of constitutional checks and balances are designed with the goal of protecting the vulnerable, adding that “no modern democracy, for example, could legitimately hold an election on whether an individual criminal suspect ought to be found guilty” (p. 5). This line of reasoning is the philosophy behind such international covenants as the European Covenant on Human Rights and the constitutional jurisprudence of individual countries that are inclined toward regulating hate speech. In pro-hate speech regulation countries, the notions of equality, multiculturalism, dignity, personal authenticity, and, of course, group-regarding concerns constitute the considerable factors for speech regulation advocacy (cf., Rosenfeld, 2001). In spite of these reasons advanced by the advocates of hate speech restriction on the need to balance freedom of speech (hate speech) against the right to equality of humanity and nondiscrimination, the antihate speech restriction scholars still find reasons to argue for the protection of speech.
Frontline advocates of hate speech protection include the likes of Bollinger (1998), Strossen (1990), Gross & Kinder (1998), Weinstein (2017), Post (1990, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2011a, 2011b), Heinze (2006, 2007, 2016, 2017), Dworkin (2009), Mchangama (2012), and Lepoutre (2017). Bollinger is of the affirmation that the value of tolerance is at the core of hate speech protection advocacy. He expresses the view that the chief value of enthroning an extremely liberal free speech regime is that it inculcates in us the virtue of tolerance which, in turn, serves as a regulatory mechanism to our intolerant attitude toward hate speech. He sees freedom of speech as a weapon against the tyranny of both the government and the majority (Bollinger, 1998, pp. 238–243). Bollinger’s position is in line with the popular view in the United States wherein the bottom line of the speech protection advocates is that targets of hate speech should learn to put up with it bearing in mind that freedom of speech is more important than minimizing their feelings of discrimination or debasement. Given that Bollinger is of the opinion that accommodating hate speech inculcates in us the virtue of tolerance toward those whom we disagree, Auxier (2007) suggests that his approach could be correctly labeled “the virtue-enhancing approach” (p. 225). Much as Bollinger’s contention that freedom of speech is a weapon against the tyranny of both the government and the majority, it portrays freedom in that regard as a value enjoyed at the expense of violating the other’s right against discrimination and right to equality as well as the dignity of the human person.
In her discourse on hate speech, Strossen relied on the slippery slope argument to argue for hate speech protection. She is of the affirmation that entrusting the state with the power to regulate hate/extreme speech is as good as it is dangerous. Her reason is that such a power is an open-ended one that is most likely subject to abuse. Strossen wonders if allowing the United States’ government to regulate hate speech will not undermine the underpinning moral legitimacy of the First Amendment. The best option in her thinking is for the state to strike a balance. Thus, she argues: “if the constitution forces government to allow people to march, speak and write in favor of peace, brotherhood and justice, then it must also require government to allow them to advocate hatred, racism, and even genocide” (Strossen, 1990, p. 534). For Strossen, banning hate/racist speech has the consequence of giving legitimacy to the idea that the state has the right to suppress any speech to which it disagrees. Strossen’s fear about hate speech ban is similar to the one shared by Shiffrin (2014) who had thought that categorizing speeches that could be regulated might be a way of creating room for arbitrary use of power by those in authority. Although what happens in most states today where state actors deploy regulation as oppressive weapon against perceived opponents justifies the slippery slope backed-argument for nonregulation, the obvious shortcoming of this view is that it is averse to risk-taking, just as it gives its advocates the image of infallible prophets.
Among the advocates of hate speech protection, one may be tempted to describe Robert Post as an extremist, almost in the same way that one could be tempted to classify Heinze and Dworkin. However, a closer look at their philosophy will reveal that at the bottom of their reasoning is recognition of the need to balance our approach to issues. Unlike some liberals (though not the leading ones like Mill, Post, and Heinze) who used the ideas of “the market place of ideas,” and “personal autonomy” as their justifications for freedom of speech, Post relied on the doctrine of “democratic self-governance” as his justification for free speech (Jarymowicz, 2014). In rejecting the “market place of ideas” as a mechanism for grounding freedom of expression, Post contends that the doctrine as ordinarily conceived requires rules and civility norms for the purposes of creating knowledge. His reason is that such rules and civility norms are threats to freedom of speech.
In his “Participatory Democracy and Free Speech” (2011a), Post outlines three reasons for rejecting autonomy-based defense as a grounding for freedom of expression. His first reason is that autonomy does not differentiate between speech and action, thereby making it difficult to justify its special status for speech. Second, there are many instances where the autonomy of one person conflicts with another person’s autonomy, a situation that makes it difficult for us to adjudicate whose autonomy prevails. The third reason is that there are parallel situations where particular harms and the autonomy of the speakers remain the same but are adjudicated differently depending on which one is considered as democratic self-governance (pp. 479-80). On Post’s view, the only means by which a robust public sphere could be secured is through political autonomy, a claim Jarymowicz says seems to immune him to the interest argument. However, as Jarymowicz seems to have correctly pointed out, “the market place of ideas reappears in Post’s theory as the logical consequence of his idea of public discourse” (p. 111).
In endorsing America’s posture toward hate speech, Heinze submits that “a First Amendment approach to hate speech is not only preferable for stable, mature and prosperous Western European democracies, but can in fact work better in those states than it does in the United States.” His reason is that since other western states have their traditional mechanisms or safeguards for controlling their citizens’ propensity to indulge in an unbridled liberalism, they are in a position to combat intolerance through noncoercive means than the United States, if they combine those measures with the First Amendment Protection. This observation informed his advocacy for the abolition of hate speech bans in Western Europe. According to Heinze, hate speech bans are contradictory because rather than their assumed task of strengthening equality, tolerance or democratic citizenship, they instead undermine those values. Heinze agrees that hate speech bans may under some circumstances promote the state’s security, given that protection of vulnerable persons or groups is a standard security concern, but remains of the affirmation that bans never promote the state’s democracy. As a staunch supporter of viewpoint absolutism, Heinze opposes in strong terms any attempts to restrict speech. For him, hate speech restriction or ban should be permitted only (a) during a legitimately declared state of emergency, or (b) if government can materially demonstrate either (i) the commission of some independently illegal act, such as a murder or battery, or (ii) the likelihood of imminent lawless action (p. 547).
Another arch advocate of hate speech protection, Ronald Dworkin, has it that unless a given decision has been taken in a manner that respects each individual’s status, as a free and equal member of the community, it amounts to an act of illegitimacy for governments to impose a collective decision on dissenting individuals. He says that the majority has no right to impose its will on someone who is forbidden to raise a voice in protest or objection before the decision is taken (Dworkin, 2009, p. vii). For Dworkin, freedom of expression is a mechanism through which individuals express personal authenticity.
In support of Dworkin, Weinstein (2011, p. 489), another arrow-head of hate speech protection, observes that: [i]f an individual is excluded from participating in public discourse because the government disagrees with the speaker’s view or because it finds the ideas expressed too disturbing or offensive, any decision taken as a result of that discussion would, as to such excluded citizen, lack legitimacy.
Weinstein opines that hate speech provides opportunity for each individual to participate as an equal in public conversation about society’s collective decision. Although those engaged in free speech advocacy have their individual differences as it pertains to approach, they are, nevertheless, in one way or another united by the values of autonomy, self-development, as well as individuality. In his recent article, Thompson (2019) while observing that a state has both coercive and expressive capacities, explores ways by which states could checkmate harmful speeches without resorting to legal sanctioning. He opines that with its coercive capacity, a state can protect hate speech, while at the same time condemning its use vehemently with its expressive capacity.
It is interesting to note that advocates of hate speech protection are drawn mainly from the liberal tradition. Although many of these writers with liberal bent are united by their belief that hate speech ban is antidemocratic and counter-productive in the same way that it diminishes political legitimacy, not all of them share this view. For instance, in “Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship,” Heinze (2016) strongly and repeatedly criticizes both liberal and rights-based theories, arguing not only that they provide inadequate foundations for free speech but that they have largely eclipsed distinctly democratic understandings. In various writings, Heinze endorsed antiliberal critics of censorship. Although writers like Post, Dworkin, or Weinstein draw no such distinctions between liberalism and democracy, they nevertheless tend to distinguish their own positions strongly from categorically libertarian stances, just as Heinze himself does at some length.
On Personhood
Implied in the works of most people that have reflected on the concept of personhood is the idea that personhood is a concept that is riddled with many linguistic difficulties. To this end, therefore, clarifying the meanings of this operating concept becomes imperative. So, how is “the person” to be defined? Personhood has been conceived in diverse ways, especially as it has remained a contentious issue in the area of psychology, business ethics, law, bio-medical ethics, and medicine in general. When laws (for instance, hate speech laws) are made, they are made with the human person in mind. Discourses on personhood, as can be seen from existing literatures, reveal that the notion of personhood has been approached from different perspectives, including roles (Mclean, 1991), legal identity (Gindis, 2015), human beings (Okon, 2010), criterialism (Warren, 1997), as well as environing community (Menkiti, 1984).
Boethius, a sixth century theologian, puts forward a classical definition of the person as “an individual substance of a rational nature” (cf., Okon, 2010, p. 15). This conception later became the reference point as well as a point of departure for much of the subsequent reflections on the subject. Boethius’ definition of the person is important philosophically, in at least two respects. First, it delineated rationality as the defining feature of personhood. A striking philosophical feature of the Boethian person, according to Gindis (2015) is that the private and public components of the person are separated from each other. Warren (1997, pp. 83–84) gave a criteria-based account of personhood. To this end, she lists the cardinal markers of personhood, namely (a) consciousness and ability to feel pain, (b) a developed capacity for reasoning, (c) self-motivated activity, (d) capacity to communicate messages of an indefinite variety of types, and (e) moral agency. One obvious implication of Warren’s criteria-based personhood is that with its “either in or out strategy,” it automatically excludes certain category of beings from the class of persons. For instance, as Chappell (2011, p. 4) rightly observes, children under certain age, mentally handicapped persons, Buddhists, moral nihilists, and autistics would not qualify to be persons within the framework of the above Warren criterialism. In Chappell’s view, Buddhists would be excluded from the class of persons determined from the plank of criterialism, if having a “self” as a continuing subject is one of the yardsticks for determining personhood. The reason for this is simple: Buddhists deny the existence of a self as a subsisting entity. As for the moral nihilists, Chappell reasoned that they would be excluded from the class of persons, if the capacity to value one’s life becomes the parameter for determining who is and who is not a person. He came to this conclusion on the known grounds that nihilists do not believe in the existence of values.
Is the above western-oriented notion of personhood universal? A look at the African conception of the human person may be worthwhile in attending to this question. The essence of bringing in African perspective on personhood is not just to show that Africans differ from the West in their conception and that there is no universally acceptable definition of personhood but more importantly to demonstrate that how a people conceive personhood influences, to a great deal, their approach to the hate speech debate—in terms of whether to restrict or protect it. Some people tend to give the impression that although personhood in African is thought to some extent perceived in the light of certain defined qualities, it is definitely not in the fashion of the West. In fact, some African scholars are of the opinion that personhood in African is thought not defined in the light of the western isolated static qualities. Menkiti (1984, p. 171), for instance, believes that it is the “environing community” that defines personhood in Africa. Whereas Menkiti’s conception of personhood in Africa implies that personhood is externally conferred on individuals by the community, Gyekye (1992) does not differ much from the westerners by thinking that personhood is something that is bequeathed by the community and which individuals have to acquire. Menkiti appears to be saying that children are not persons in Africa, and therefore, that not all human beings are persons in Africa. It seems to us that the culturally essentialist notions of personhood in which personhood in the west is said to possess some isolated static qualities fails to take into consideration the vast phenomenological tradition—not to mention thinkers from Plato and Aristotle through to Hegel, Marx, Weber, or Durkheim, all of whom emphatically linked personhood to the environing community.
A better picture of the African conception of personhood (assuming there is really any significant difference between African and western conceptions) is that presented by Kwame Gyekye (1992, p. 74) wherein he disagrees with Mentiki’s claim that it is the community that confers personhood, especially as he (Menkiti) tries to back up his claim with the idea of the absence of ritualized grief over the death of a child as compared with the death of an adult. According to Gyekye, the absence of ritualized grief on the death of a child has nothing to do with the African view of personhood. He contends that in Africa, a human person is a person not minding his age or social status. Personhood may reach its full realization in community, but it is not acquired or yet to be achieved as one goes along in society.
Autonomy and Hate Speech
The notion of autonomy, like that of personhood, is one that is very strategic to a good understanding of the polemics underpinning the hate speech debate. Although many have reflected on the very notion of autonomy, yet not all are agreed on the exact meaning of the term. The reality of this observation manifests itself in the way both the advocates of hate speech protection and prohibition rely on it to defend their conflicting positions. Derived from the Greek word “autonomos” wherein “autos” stands for “self” and “nomos” represents “law,” autonomy can be literally taken to mean “self rule (law?).” It means self-government. Respect for autonomy, therefore, is a respect for individuals’ right to self-determination. Following from this, an autonomous person would be that person who has the capacity to make and actually makes laws for himself. It is in this regard that Faden et al. (1986) conceive autonomy as “personal rule of the self by adequate understanding while remaining free from controlling interferences by others and from personal limitations that prevent choice” (p. 8). A generous understanding of autonomy is in the sense of a person being able to do whatever he likes (cf. Baker, 2011; Brison, 1998; Dworkin, 2009; Raz, 1986; Scanlon, 1972; Sunstein, 1991). That is, as Roessler (2012) observes, “being able to determine one’s life according to beliefs, reasons, values and commitments which are one’s own” (p. 449). In talking about autonomy, philosophers usually distinguish between personal and moral autonomy. The general conception of autonomy that we have just offered depicts personal autonomy because, as Waldron (2005) observes, “it evokes the image of a person in charge of his life, not just following his desires but choosing which of his desires to follow” (p. 307). It is personal autonomy that Christman (2009) had in mind when he declared that a person is autonomous only if “her motivating states are truly her own.” Most feminist thinkers consider this way of conceiving autonomy as western-oriented and too individualistic to be accepted as a balanced view. They accuse this model of autonomy as being inadequate as it directs no attention to the contextual details of personal experience or of the situation within which autonomy in real life is exercised to a greater or lesser degree (cf., Stoljar, 2013). In the words of Sherwin et al. (1998), “we need to move away from the familiar Western understanding of autonomy as self-defining, self-interested, and self-protecting, as if the self were simply some special kind of property to be preserved” (p. 35). According to this set of feminists, there is a web of interconnected and sometimes conflicting relationships that shape individuality. Accordingly, they show preference for a relational model of autonomy that recognizes and stresses the complexity of connection among individuals, their social milieu, their cultural matrix, as well as political positions. According to the relational model of autonomy, “agents identities are formed and shaped by a complex of intersecting social determinants, such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity” (Mackenzie & Stoljar, 2000, p. 4). Moral autonomy, on the contrary, bothers on the relationship between one person’s pursuit of his own ends and others’ pursuit of theirs. On this view, a person is said to be autonomous “when he is not guided just by his own conception of happiness, but by the universalized concern for the ends of all rational persons” (Waldron, 2005, p. 307). Moral autonomy is usually associated with Kant, even though some scholars are of the opinion that his notion of autonomy incorporates both versions in a blurred form. The fundamental difference between the two is that whereas personal autonomy is characterized by unrestrained pursuit of happiness, moral autonomy is subject to the rigors and severity of the moral law (cf., Waldron, 2005, p. 309).
Having understood what is meant by autonomy, the big question then is: who is an autonomous person? Beauchamp and Childress (1994) write that for Kant, “a person has autonomy of the will if and only if the person knowingly acts in accordance with the universally valid moral principles that pass the requirement of the categorical imperative” (p. 58). It is instructive to note that the Kantian autonomous individual is not an individual who does anything he likes without boundary, but rather an individual who is free to choose and act on those choices of his that his interrogations receive the stamp of universality. In other words, Kant’s universalization formalities require that I recognize and respect my freedom of pursuit of happiness to exist in equal measure in others. In his seminal work,
For Joseph Raz (1986), autonomy is not all about having values and being able to reveal them by way of one’s choices. It involves self-authorship which manifests in making significant choices. Thus, for him, An autonomous person is part author of his own life . . . A person is autonomous only if he had a variety of acceptable options to choose from, and his life became as it is through his choice of some of these options. A person who has never had any significant choice, or was not aware of it, or never exercised choice in significant matters but simply drifted through life is not an autonomous person (204, 369).
In one of his papers entitled “Autonomy and Free Speech,” Baker (2011) having observed that “a person’s autonomy refers to her capacity to pursue successfully the life she endorses” (p. 251), categorizes autonomy into two—formal and substantive autonomy. However, he construes formal autonomy as consisting in a person’s authority (or right) to make decisions about herself—her own meaningful actions and usually her use of her resources—as long as her actions do not block others’ similar authority or rights (p. 254). Baker sees substantive autonomy as a nonabsolute value that calls for balancing.
In his article: “The Autonomy Defense of Hate Speech,” Brison (1998) observes that the brand of autonomy used more in the hate speech discourse is the moral autonomy wherein, following Kant’s perspective, autonomous judgment is equated with moral judgment. According to him, those advocating for moral autonomy are concerned about the threat of governmental abuse in the area of morals legislation. Their fear of government intervention follows from their conviction that all persons are capable of arriving at their own moral convictions. Richard Dworkin is among the known autonomy defenders of hate speech protection. He belongs to the school of thought that perceives autonomy as a right to moral independence. In one of his articles, he submits that people have the right not to suffer disadvantage in the distribution of social goods and opportunities, including disadvantage in the liberties permitted to them by the criminal law just on the ground that their officials or fellow citizens think that their opinions about the right way for them to lead their own lives are ignoble or wrong. (Dworkin, 1986, p. 353)
Dworkin is of the strong affirmation that governments have no business violating the rights of their citizens, no matter how justified they think they are. In his words: if someone has a right to moral independence, this means that it is . . . wrong for officials to act in violation of that right, even if they (correctly) believe that the community as a whole would be better off if they did. (p. 359)
Dworkin should not be construed here as saying that government should never interfere in the affairs of the individual. Of course Dworkin and other staunch advocates of free speech protection are inclined to the view that any numbers of state interferences are entirely necessary and entirely justified, including the area of free speech. Their emphasis is on violation, not necessarily interference. Although it is clear that Dworkin recognizes the enormity of the moral pains (hate) speech can perpetrate on its victims (that is, those who disagree with such speech), nevertheless he is of the affirmation that potential or actual victims of speech have no right to be protected against such moral harm. In our estimation, by taking this position, Dworkin fails to understand that other people’s rights, say, their rights to free speech or to equality of opportunity, may be undermined by someone’s engaging in hate speech.
In one of his articles that touches on autonomy, Sunstein (1991, p. 11) writes: The notion of autonomy should refer instead to decisions reached with a full and vivid awareness of available opportunities, with reference to all relevant information, and without illegitimate or excessive constraints on the process of preference formation. When these conditions are not met, decisions should be described as unfree or non autonomous; for this reason it is most difficult to identify autonomy with preference satisfaction.
This paper is of the view that Sunstein’s observation is correct for his account of autonomy tends to suggest that beliefs arrived at by receiving others’ speech are products of conditioning and, as Brison (1998, p. 337) himself observes, not only first-order desires, but also second-order desires are affected by others’ speech.
It is on the strength of the above that Sunstein introduces welfare-based argument to demonstrate that rather than undermine autonomy, government interferences in individual affairs in some cases serve to enhance or protect autonomy. It follows from Sunstein’s observations that state regulation of speech may find justification on the need to protect certain category of persons from the destructive effects of some externally-induced desires. In concluding this segment, it is instructive to note that from all appearances, Sunstein is saying, in line with Brison’s observation, that the autonomy-based defense of free speech fails to yield an explanation for why hate speech should be protected anymore than discriminatory conduct of other sorts such as discrimination in employment, housing, and education (cf., Brison p. 338).
Hate Speech and Authentic Personhood
Does hate speech violate authentic personhood? The foremost problematic issue about freedom of speech is that it is both a negative and positive right. Negative in that it is a right against government; and positive in the sense that it is a right to government sponsorship and encouragement of free speech. Reputation/social standing of the members of a group that fall victim of hate speech is one of the major reasons offered by the advocates of hate speech ban in favor of their position. According to them, hate speech amounts to a reputational attack which in turn is an assault upon the dignity of the victims. The dignity here is in terms of the victims’ recognition as social equals, and their status as bearers of human rights and constitutional entitlements (Waldron, 2010). As one can see, this argument is coming against the backdrop of freedom of speech as a positive right. Commenting on hate speech and its impact on the dignity and social standing of its victims, Delgado (1982) observes that such language (hate speech) injures the dignity and self-regard of the person to whom it is addressed, thereby communicating the message that distinctions of race are distinctions of merit, dignity, status, and personhood. Going further, he adds “. . . a racial insult is always a dignitary affront, a direct violation of the victim’s right to be treated respectfully” (p. 145). Massaro (1991) is in agreement with Waldron and Delgado on this when he writes that “the focus of the commentary has been the uneasy tension between robust protection of offensive expression and protection of the dignity and physical integrity of potential victims of such expression” (p. 212). But do the defenders of hate speech protection agree with this prohibitionists’ claim?
In rejecting the above position of hate speech regulation advocates, the liberals—the arrowheads of hate speech protection—coming against the backdrop of freedom of speech as a negative right (i.e., a right against the government) argue that their own position in canvassing for a broad-based protection of hate speech is based on the concept of “faith” and “fear.” In other words, the argument of the hate speech protectionists is founded on the twin principles of “faith” and “fear.” According to Massaro, the “faith” is in the people’s capacity to withstand, reject, or fob off insults, or to engage in critical and effective counter expression. The fear is of the people’s tendency to define the category of offensive ideas too broadly and idiosyncratically, so as to suppress important criticisms of orthodoxy and to curtail revolutionary possibilities and individual creativity (p. 222). What is more, the hate speech protection advocates recommend speaking back or ignoring the hate speaker(s) as a viable option, adding that civil rights and minority interests are worthy of protection but only insofar as they do not limit speech (cf., Delgado, 2004). It has to be noted that Delgado is not speaking for the hate speech protectionists here, as he does not belong to the group. He only mentioned this point about the advocates of hate speech protection in his discussion of the absolutists’ position in the hate speech debate.
In one works, Kant gives a philosophical conception of dignity as the immeasurable worth of humans by virtue of their being moral agents (cf., Waldron, 2010, p. 1611). Dignity considered philosophically is inherent in the human person (Waldron, 2010). That is to say, it is an attribute of man that no law or social practice can take away. Dignity is a social cum legal status which has to be nourished and maintained by society and law. It appears on the surface that hate speech considered from the perspectives/angle of human dignity violates, rather than enhance personhood. This appears to be true as it concerns both western and African perspectives on personhood. But this position becomes riddled in controversy when one considers that defenders of hate speech protection lay claim to the fact that prohibiting hate speech amounts to a violation or denigration of the civil dignity of the supposed hate speakers. In their opinion, what governments achieve by putting in place hate speech laws is to forbid some people from protesting or criticizing certain proposed policies before they are put into implementation. Recall that Dworkin (2009) had once said that “The majority has no right to impose its will on someone who is forbidden to raise a voice in protest or objection before the decision is taken” (p. vii).
James Weinstein made observations similar to the above in one of his papers. He writes: [i]f an individual is excluded from participating in public discourse because the government disagrees with the speaker’s views or because it finds the ideas expressed too disturbing or offensive, any decision taken as a result of that discussion would, as to such an excluded citizen, lack legitimacy. (Weinstein, 2011, p. 498)
The bottom line of the hate speech protection advocates is that hate speech vindicates, rather than violates human dignity, and by extension, authentic personhood. Seen thus, hate speech is a two-faced sword with the propensity to either enhance or violate personhood. This observation is in line with Heinze’s (2006) position when, with respect to western European States’ speech bans, he contends that Western European hate speech bans as they are involve deep contradictions that promote hypocrisy, discrimination and disrespect for the rule of law (p. 545). For him, hate speech bans are contradictory because rather than their assumed task of strengthening equality, tolerance, or democratic citizenship, they instead undermine those values. But why is free speech so quintessential to the sustenance of democracy in the eyes of the liberals that they consider it worthy of maximum legal protection, and not doing so, a diminution of man’s personal authenticity?
Free speech has been forcefully defended from many fronts. Thus, from the perspective of peace keeping theory, it is observed that “the promise of liberal democracy is to provide an arena for differences and hostilities to be aired peacefully, allowing people to blow offsteam without recourse to physical violence” (Heinze, 2006, p. 553). While this might, no doubt, prove a good defense for protecting hates speech, it can also be a good justification for restricting speech. Against the backdrop of theory of “market place of ideas,” free speech has been defended on the grounds that speech arena is like a marketplace where speech of different kinds and qualities are in offer for sale, and that only those considered to be of premium value will be treasured most by the buyers. That is to say, the most truthful and most persuasive ideas are those that can withstand persistent pressures of open debate. Accordingly, there would be no need prohibiting speeches found to be unworthy, knowing that upon scrutiny, they will disappear on their own. A defense of free speech on the plank of the theory of civic republicanism has it that to openly and candidly express and exchange ideas is a right with corresponding duty: a right on the side of the citizens and a duty on the side of the government in a democratic society. In this regard, Heinze (2006) writes that [o]n that view (civic republicanism), it is vital—however disagreeable—in a democratic society for us to know what our fellow citizens think and to develop our own capacities for critical response. We cannot know what others think when government silences them. (p. 554) (emphasis is ours)
He continues: “[c]ritical thinking comes from individual and collective practice, not from government diktat. It comes from a social ethos of unrelentingly critical public discourse, rather than state-directed coercion” (Heinze, 2006). Coming against the backdrop of civic republicanism, liberals oriented toward viewpoint absolutism extraction posit that the best way to keep ignorance and intolerance is when citizens are given the latitude to decide for themselves what to say, what to hear, and what to believe as well as to respond through the various channels available in a democratic society. The reasoning behind this is that according to Heinze, all citizens in a democratic society must be free to know who the speakers are, where they are, what they preach, and to whom, in the event that channels of communication are used to propagate hatred (cf., Heinze, 2006).
Another reason for which the liberals consider free speech so quintessential to the sustenance of democracy in the eyes of the liberals that makes it worthy of maximum legal protection is that in a representative democracy, as Tsesis observes, dialogue facilitates the testing of competing claims and obtaining diverse input into political decision-making (p. 497). Or, as Solove (2007, pp. 129–132) declares that free speech is essential to the enjoyment of personal autonomy. According to Bleich (2011, p. 917), the central message in Mill’s observations in his theory of speech as contained in his masterpiece,
In a related development, the advocates of hate speech protection argue that enthroning hate speech laws amounts to a violation of their right to equal treatment. The point of their argument is that hate speech ban is viewpoint discriminatory. In this connection, Tsesis notes that maintaining equality means that government has no power to treat the speech of similarly situated persons differently (p. 497). Chemerinsky (2000) explains that in virtually every free speech case decided by the Supreme Court in America in the recent time, the outcome depended, to a large extent, on whether the court characterized the law as content-based or content-neutral (p. 49). He adds that the court had interpreted the U.S. First Amendment to mean that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. The proponents of hate speech regulation see this as purely discriminatory.
Advocates of hate speech prohibition oppose vigorously the idea of protecting hate speech. Apart from the psychological and dignitary harm associated with hate speech, it deals a devastating blow on the victim’s right to equal humanity. That is to say, hate speech reduces its victims to the status of second-class citizens. It is the expectation of hate speech prohibitionists that free expression must of necessity be balanced against the value of equality and the harmful consequences of racist speech. This is an expectation which Gross and Kinder surprisingly found out is not the basis upon which those Americans who canvass for restriction on hate speech justify their advocacy. On the contrary, public opinion on racist speech is dominated by the principle of free expression. To crown the position of the prohibitionists that hate speech violates the principle of equality/egalitarianism, and should be restricted, Delgado has this to say: Racism is a breach of the ideal of egalitarianism, that “all men are created equal” and each person is an equal moral agent . . . A society in which members are subjected to degradation because of their race hardly exemplifies this ideal . . . (1982, pp. 140–141).
From the foregoing observations, it follows that if racist insults are antiegalitarianism, as our intuition indeed points to, then on the framework of the prohibitionists, as is similarly obtainable on the protectionists framework, hate speech could be said to be an erosion, or better still, a diminution of authentic personhood.
Are there ways, positively or negatively that hate speech can impact on rationality and autonomy as the defining attributes of personhood? This question will elicit different reactions from both the prohibitionists and the protectionists. Concerning laws prohibiting hate speech, the protectionists’ arguments tend to suggest that such laws encroach upon man’s autonomy as a rational being. On behalf of the hate speech protectionists, Professor Edwin Baker observes that the element of self-disclosure which manifests itself in hate speech is a key indicator of personal autonomy, and indeed authentic personhood. He adds that for autonomy to be respected, a person must have a general right over the value-expressive uses of herself-her own body (cf., Waldron, 2010, p. 1637). In further advancing individuals autonomy as a basis for protecting hate speech, Baker observes that even though a person may not be permitted to act on her values, when such values are taught to be harmful to others, she should, nevertheless, be permitted to disclose and express her values to others as the value–bearing person she wants to be p. 1637). Waldron quotes Baker extensively: [T]he law must not aim at eliminating or suppressing people’s freedom to make decisions about behavior or values. These requirements have clear implication for speech, namely, that a person should be able to decide for herself what to say . . . This view centrally identifies the person with agency, with action, and with the possibility of choice. In a sense, this is an activity view of personhood . . . (p. 1635).
Baker’s views as expressed above seem to be a formidable justification for why hate speech ought to be given legal recognition and protection. Most of the protectionists are in agreement that what racists or hate speakers are punished for expressing in public is the very thing out of all messages a person could convey, that matters most to them (Waldron, 2010, pp. 1635, 1638).
The above position of the protectionists does not go down well with the prohibitionists. For instance, Waldron agrees with Baker that laws prohibiting hate speech make the public expression of ideas less free in a way that matters to individuals, but then doubts the workability of Baker’s position.
Conclusion
This article has demonstrated that the notion of “personhood” is at the core of the on-going debate about hate speech. Using Europe, America, and to some extent Africa as examples, it showed that the way a person or society conceives hate speech and subsequently addresses it is due largely to how the person or society in question conceives the nature and structure of personhood. We used the phrase: “and to some extent, Africa” for the reason that, unlike Europe and America that have categorical hate speech laws in place, most states in Africa (except for Kenya in the recent time) do not have laws that categorically regulate hate speech. The desirability or otherwise of banning/criminalizing hate speech was considered with the aim of exploring the ideas and reasoning behind the various arguments and positions for and against hate speech. It was found out that liberal democracies are favorably disposed toward protecting hate speech owing to their commitments to the value of individual freedom. Conversely, the prohibitionists’ favorable disposition toward proscribing hate speech is informed by their recognition that every society is made up of competing interests that need to be balanced against the claim for freedom of expression. They acknowledge that a cardinal feature of democracy is the willingness to accommodate a full and frank exchange of words but note that this requirement becomes problematic when the views to be exchanged include those that are widely considered to be harmful.
Furthermore, the article considered whether hate speech violates or enhances personhood. To do this effectively, it selected and analyzed some widely accepted defining characteristics/attributes of personhood. The article’s findings reveal that hate speech enhances authentic personhood in the same way that it violates it. Although for reasons that have to do with the authors’ declared goal of only uncovering the truths about hate speeches as they are vis-à-vis the enhancement or diminution of personhood, the authors refrained from making a categorical recommendation either that hate speech should be regulated or protected, they nevertheless urge that the following observations need to be given serious considerations: It is obvious that most states in today’s world are certainly not fully functioning democracies at all, as illustrated nowhere more glaringly than in the crackdowns on speech throughout the globe. Censorship is undertaken not out of any deep commitments to a balancing approach as noted above to be a major argument by the proregulation advocates but simply to maintain power by favoring supportive constituencies.
Given the full import of autonomy and authentic personhood, one would have recommended that regulating or protecting hate speech should be left at the discretion of individual states, but the dictatorial and nonaccommodating posture of most leaders in emerging democracies, especially in Africa, leaving the issue of regulating or not regulating speech at the discretion of states based on their individual understanding of the notions of personhood and hate speech is no doubt prone to abuse by the political parties in power at the expense of the opposition parties. This is evident in the widespread abuses of censorship all over the world, where hate speech bans and their analogues are used more to stigmatize dissidents and to appease autocratic states and religious institutions than to promote anything like equal citizenship. Notwithstanding the fact that censorship in most emerging democracies is not undertaken out of commitments to balancing approach as stated above, this article still opts for a balancing approach as a preferable alternative to either outright protection or prohibition of hate speech. This position seems to enjoy the support of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which by way of its judgments in the case of . . .tolerance and respect for the equal dignity of all human beings constitute the foundations of a democratic, pluralistic society . . . as a matter of principle, it may be considered necessary in certain democratic societies to sanction or even prevent all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance . . .” (see para. 40 of the judgment)
This elaboration becomes necessary having regard to the fact that concluding this article with the bare assertion that the peculiarities of each state should determine whether or not it regulates hate speech will make this article’s position remain wholly idealized, assuming that states generally decide these matters in fair and inclusive ways.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
