Topics Justice

Question The recent controversy surround the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mahommad has given rise to claims that Danes and others should break taboos and that freedom of the press and free speech are of a greater value than maintaining such taboos. Could the same claim be made around dialogue concerning the Jews and Nazi Germany?

Accepted:
February 23, 2006

Comments

Yes, it makes sense to see these two cases as parallel. But in doing so I would disagree with your first and agree with your second suggestion.

I would agree that freedom of the press and free speech are more important that the maintenance of the taboos in question: Our countries should outlaw neither cartoons that insult the prophet of Islam nor works that glorify the Nazis or deny the holocaust.

But this claim is distinct from your first suggestion namely that citizens of our countries should break the relevant taboos. I do not think that people ought to glorify the Nazis, ought to deny the holocaust, or ought to publish cartoons that insult revered figures of other religions. In fact, I think they ought to refrain from doing such things (though, to repeat, doing them should be legally permissible).

We might then distinguish four classes of expressions: (1) those that ought to be outlawed and are morally wrong; (2) those that ought to be legal and are morally wrong; (3) those that ought to be legal and are morally indifferent; and (4) those that ought to be legal and are morally called for.

In response to your question, we should think especially about class (2) to appreciate that there may be important reasons (e.g. respect for truth or respect for people of other faiths) to refrain from certain expressions that should nonetheless remain legal.

Among the reasons to conceive freedom of speech and the press broadly as firmly permitting many expressions that are morally wrong these two reasons are especially prominent: The political process (government) tends not to be very good at confining itself to outlawing expressions that really are morally wrong. If given discretion, it will often outlaw far too much, as is shown clearly by the experience of many past and present countries. Secondly, outlawing morally wrong expressions is often counterproductive by suggesting that a view must have good reasons in its favor if the government is unwilling to allow that view and these reasons to be heard. Glorifiers of the Nazis and deniers of the holocaust may be met most effectively by permitting their arguments and exposing them to reasoned responses. (David Irving has apparently changed his mind about the holocaust on the basis of such responses from historians and others). And the most effective response to the editors of that Danish newspaper may be a vigorous debate about why they declined to print the earlier cartoons insulting Jesus Christ.