Jonathan Seglow

Much of the recent literature on freedom of speech has focused on the arguments for and against the regulation of certain kinds of speech. Discussions of hate speech and offensive speech, for example, abound in this literature, as do debates concerning the permissibility of pornography. Less attention has been paid, however, at least recently, to the normative foundations of freedom of speech where three classic justifications still prevail, based on the values of truth, autonomy and democracy. In this paper we argue, first, that none of these justifications meet all four intuitive desiderata for an adequate theory of free speech. We go on to sketch an original relational view of free speech, one which grounds its value in the recognition that speakers grant each other when engaging in speech practices, and its limits in the republican ideal of non-dominated co-exercisable liberty. We briefly illustrate the relational approach’s implications for the debate on hate speech regulation and for the response to fake news.

This paper examines the ethics of public shaming, both online and in person, from the perspective of freedom of speech. Current work on public shaming conceptualises it as a form of social punishment and principally examines its effects. In contrast to that, the paper considers shaming as a form of wrongful treatment. The argument proceeds in two stages. First, I emphasise the importance of uptake for free speech to have the worth it has for speakers. Though there is no right to uptake, persons do have duties not to undermine its prerequisites. Second, I maintain that shaming represents an attempt to deny the shamed person the basic eligibility conditions for social membership. With these pieces in place, I argue that public shaming, by labelling a person as socially unworthy, violates the duty to respect the conditions for uptake. The badge of shame is a signal not to give speakers’ views due weight. This applies particularly to the interest in self-presentation, an important aspect of speech.

Freedom of speech is never very far away from political controversy. In recent years, the rise of populism, the ‘cancel culture’ phenomenon, and online hate attacks are among the developments that have kept it at the forefront of both public and academic discussion. In this new introduction to the subject, Matteo Bonotti and Jonathan Seglow offer an accessible analysis of debates around freedom of speech. They introduce and critically examine three major philosophical arguments for freedom of speech that are based on the values of truth, autonomy, and democracy. They apply these arguments to issues including hate speech, offensive speech, and pornography, and also tackle pressing current issues such as ‘fake news’ and public shaming. This book will be essential for anyone wishing to understand the contemporary significance and philosophical roots of free speech, and how it relates to debates about democracy, feminism and multiculturalism.

This article examines the concept of integrity in scholarly debate on religious accommodation. There is a scholarly consensus on the value of integrity as manifesting one’s commitments (‘MM integrity’) as a way of approaching accommodation disputes, but the article argues that MM integrity is often at stake on both sides of a legal dispute. It defends a divergent view of integrity where it consists in a person’s responsible exercise of her moral and epistemic capacities in seeking to arrive at well-founded commitments (‘MR integrity’). It’s argued that MR integrity is in—sometimes productive—tension with MM integrity. These claims are illustrated by examining two recent Supreme Court cases, from the US and the UK, both of which involve bakeries accused of discriminating against gay customers.

Religious Sovereignty and Group Exemptions This response concurs with Cohen’s critique of the Hobby Lobby and Hosanna-Tabor cases but investigates whether religious accommodation might sometimes be justified in the case of institutions and groups (not just individuals). It suggests that exemptions for associations that are recruited to advance state purposes (e.g., in welfare or education) may be more justifiable than where private associations seek to maintain illiberal – for example, discriminatory – rules in line with their religious ethos. Non-democratic associations with a strong religious ethos might in principle enjoy permissible accommodation on the grounds that its members acquiesced to that ethos by joining the association, but only if other conditions are met. Democratic associations with a religious ethos have in principle a stronger claim for accommodation; in practice, however, few religious associations are internally democratic, especially where they seek to preserve illiberal internal rules.

Citizenship is a central concept in political philosophy, bridging theory and practice and marking out those who belong and who share a common civic status. The injustices suffered by immigrants, disabled people, the economically inactive and others have been extensively catalogued, but their disadvantages have generally been conceptualised in social and/or economic terms, less commonly in terms of their status as members of the polity and hardly ever together, as a group. This volume seeks to investigate the partial citizenship which these groups share and in doing so to reflect upon civic marginalisation as a distinct kind of normative wrong. For example, it is not often considered that children, though their lack of civic and political rights are marginal citizens and thus have something in common with other marginalised groups. Each of the book’s chapters explores some theoretical or practical aspect of marginal citizenship, and the volume as a whole engages with pressing debates in law and political theory, such as the limits of democratic inclusion, the character of social justice, the integration of migrants, and the enfranchisement of prisoners and children. This book was published as a special issue of the Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy.

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 515-529, May 2022. Much of the recent literature on freedom of speech has focused on the arguments for and against the regulation of certain kinds of speech. Discussions of hate speech and offensive speech, for example, abound in this literature, as do debates concerning the permissibility of pornography. Less attention has been paid, however, at least recently, to the normative foundations of freedom of speech where three classic justifications still prevail, based on the values of truth, autonomy and democracy. In this paper we argue, first, that none of these justifications meet all four intuitive desiderata for an adequate theory of free speech. We go on to sketch an original relational view of free speech, one which grounds its value in the recognition that speakers grant each other when engaging in speech practices, and its limits in the republican ideal of non-dominated co-exercisable liberty. We briefly illustrate the relational approach’s implications for the debate on hate speech regulation and for the response to fake news.

This article surveys the classic and contemporary literature on the nature and limits of freedom of expression (or free speech). It begins by surveying the main philosophical justifications for free speech, before moving to consider the two most discussed topics in the free speech literature: hate speech and pornography. The article offers some brief reflections on the large number of arguments which have been offered on these topics. Three newer battlegrounds for free speech are examined at the end: no platforming, fake news and online shaming.

This paper offers a distinctively egalitarian defence of religious accommodation in contrast to the rights-based approaches of contemporary legal thinking. It argues that we can employ the Rawlsian idea of a fair framework of co-operation to model the way that accommodation claimants reason with others (such as their employers) when they wish to be released from generally applicable rules. While participants in social institutions have ‘framework obligations’ to adhere to the rules those institutions involve, they also have ‘democratic obligations’ to re-consider and on occasion revise those rules which set back participants basic interest, including individuals’ interest in manifesting their religion or belief. A number of objections to accommodation are considered, and it’s argued that the personal responsibility objection is most serious. It’s argued that responsibility can be interpreted through the notion of identification which in turn can be conceptualised through the ideal of integrity, and that the value of integrity in fact counts in favour of accommodation claims. The paper also offers replies to other objections to religious accommodation including the problem of proliferation, the problem of illiberal beliefs and the rewarding the doctrinaire objection.

"The chief problem of human life", wrote Auguste Comte, is "the subordination of egoism to altruism". This collection examines the nature and value of altruism as a moral virtue, restoring it to its proper place at the centre of our moral and political thinking. The first five essays in the collection explore the relationship between altruism and other moral concepts such as self-interest, autonomy, community and impartiality. The five essays in the second part show how altruism is invoked in practical moral problems, including aid to developing countries, the market for human body parts, multiculturalism and the politics of recognition, and medical ethics. Through these discussions, the central role of altruism in moral thinking is brought into sharper focus.

This article explores Axel Honneth's theory of recognition as the most worked out account of recognition available to political philosophy. I argue that Honneth over-estimates the degree to which rights deliver recognition; faces internal problems if his theory is extended to evaluate global injustice; and shows an ambivalence over the criterial basis for esteem. I go on to argue that the institutional fabric of everyday life has a more significant role in delivering recognition than Honneth acknowledges — a point which partially resolves some of the problems identified.

This paper examines the phenomenon of marginalization through the lens of the relatively neglected concept of contribution. It argues that the opportunity to contribute positively to others’ lives is an important component of human well-being which promotes the goods of meaning, self-respect and reliance. Where individuals enjoy that opportunity, they are on that account less marginalized. Contributory practices channelled through publicly recognized median institutions (between the state and the personal sphere) are especially valuable.

This response to Cecile Laborde's Liberalism's Religion explores her use of integrity in defence of legal accommodation for religious groups, noting some problems and issues raised by her account. It goes on to examine her novel category of Integrity Protecting Commitments, and then her views on reasonable disagreement. Integrity too, I suggest, may be the object of reasonable disagreement. Finally, it considers the two more general accounts of exemptions Laborde offers (into which the notion of integrity is inserted), disproportionate burden and majority bias.

This article offers a normative analysis of the state of religious accommodation law in the UK. It identifies five ‘normative gaps’ in the law where the legal discussion could benefit by employing the analytical lens of political theory. These gaps concern (i) what sorts of religious (or non-religious) beliefs should enjoy protected status; (ii) how the law should address issues of individual choice and responsibility; (iii) whether there is a genuine distinction between manifesting and being motivated by one’s beliefs; (iv) what sorts of interests count against accommodation claims; and (v) the relationship between human rights and discrimination law, the two pillars of religious accommodation law in the UK. The first half of the article sets out these issues, while the second half offers some preliminary conclusions and ways of resolving them. The Conclusion traces the contours of a satisfactory theory of religious accommodation law.