Censorship, Condemnation, and Understanding

Some authors perceive a close connection between censorship and condemnation. They claim that censorship condemns the lifestyle from which the censored speech arises. Joseph Raz argues that condemnation is part of censorship’s social meaning. Ronald Dworkin argues that censorship is often, as best we can tell, motivated by condemnation. These connections between censorship and condemnation reinforce the case for a robust free speech principle. Why? Because if it’s wrong to condemn a good lifestyle, and if some harmful speech arises out of good lifestyles, then there’s some harmful speech that it’s nevertheless wrong to censor. This chapter uses Leslie Green’s account of understanding—and of the relation between understanding and toleration—to challenge this reasoning. The chapter argues that the effort to under-stand a lifestyle can mitigate or nullify the condemnatory potential of censorship that restricts bad speech arising out of that lifestyle.