Offense (John Speaking)
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Some of Devin's students are highly offended. I think we have to ask whether he is violating their basic moral rights by speaking the way he is about blacks or women or homosexuals. Social philosophers have often talked about harm and the right not to be harmed. Most of them have agreed that being offended is not the sort of thing that counts as harm, or, at least, as the sort of harm that we have a right not to have inflicted upon us.

If each of us has a right not to be offended, we would have a right to prohibit the things that offend us. That would lead to lots of problems, some of which may be logically impossible to resolve. Consider these possibilities:

• Some people are offended by things that many of us regard as trivial and utterly inoffensive. Some of these cases involve idiosyncratic individuals. For example, someone might be offended by the fact that other people wear red clothes. Should the government ban wearing red?
  
• Others cases involve people from different cultures with views that are quite normal for their culture. For example, there are people who are upset and offended by women who don't cover their faces or their legs. Should we require women to cover themselves?
  
• Some people are offended by things that most of us consider to be quite good. Is that a good reason to prohibit those things?
  
• Some people may be offended by the fact that others do X and other people may be offended by the fact that others do not do X. It's logically impossible to both prohibit doing X and not doing X.

It seems to me that what all of this shows is that we do not have a right not to be offended, upset, disquieted, and so on. This seems to be true whether or not we regard offense as harm. As a result, although I feel bad for Devin's students, I don't think he is violating their moral rights by what he's doing.

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