Free Speech and the Protection of Human Dignity in Canada, Germany, and the United States: The Moral Legitimation of Competing Discourses

With the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity in Western societies, debates over hate speech and free speech have become an increasingly prominent part of the political landscape. The Canadian, German, and American constitutions represent three different approaches to these issues. How do these different approaches derive their legitimacy? In answering this question, the chapter discusses the details of each country’s approach to hate speech laws, including its bill of rights and relevant Supreme Court decisions, and identifies the implicit moral dimensions. This chapter makes the argument that the legitimation of concepts such as human dignity, hate speech, and free speech is of a fundamentally moral nature. The analysis draws on the work of Émile Durkheim, who writes extensively about moral forms of legitimation. According to his analysis, the individual in the modern West has become a sacred object, and bills of rights are sacred, moral documents that enshrine the protection of the individual person.