Questions about Harm (Dee Speaking)
		Comment				MAIN PATH: John
			John		Vera

I understand that offense is not the only concern you have; and that you claim that some harm beyond offense has occurred. But you seem to think that if you can show that there is harm (or significant harm) beyond offense, then the speech can be prohibited. That doesn't follow. We can't move that fast. There is a series of questions to consider that you are skipping over:

• What is harm?
• What harms, if any, do others have a right to inflict on us?
• What harms, if any, do people have a moral right NOT to be subjected to? In other words, what harms do others NOT have a right to inflict upon us?
• What harms do we have a right to have prohibited by law?

You need to answer these questions before you can get to the conclusion you want; namely, that hate speech can and should be prohibited by a state school.

In my opinion, you need a theory of individual rights in order to fully answer these questions. Then you can identify the harms that violate rights, and those are the ones that should be prohibited by policy or law. But you haven't offered a theory of rights. And it may be that you can't offer one. I sometimes think that your social philosophy is so result-oriented that there is no logical place within it for moral rights that could be invoked to block a particular path to a particular outcome you favor.

Reference: For an extensive treatment of moral rights, see Judith Thomson The Realm of Rights. For a discussion of harm, see chapters 9 and 10.

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