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The Case for Allowing Advocacy of Violence on Campus

photograph of University of Pennsylvania courtyard

Last week M. Elizabeth Magill, the University of Pennsylvania’s president, was forced to resign after she gave testimony before Congress concerning her university’s response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on its campus. The controversy over her testimony has focused upon the following exchange with Republican Representative Elise Stefanik:

Stefanik: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?”

Magill: “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.”

Stefanik: “Calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”

Magill: “If it is directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment.”

Stefanik: “So the answer is yes.”

Magill: “It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman.”

Stefanik: “That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context?”

After news broke that Magill had resigned, Stefanik, referring to Magill’s co-testifiers from Harvard and MIT, said in a statement: “One down. Two to go.”

As others have pointed out, what is astonishing about this episode is that Magill’s response, which (bizarrely) even some prominent law professors have criticized, was a straightforward recital of First Amendment law as applied to campus speech. The First Amendment protects from censorship advocacy of violence that falls short of verbal harassment or incitement — the latter defined as conduct intended and objectively likely to cause imminent violence. In line with this principle, Magill’s sensible position is that there are likely some situations where even advocacy of genocide does not rise to the level of harassment or incitement. But critics of Magill’s position would have us believe that the scope of permissible speech — that is, speech not subject to institutional sanction — on our elite campuses should not be as broad as it is in any public park, any periodical, or any public library in America. In this column, I will try to provide a rationale for Magill’s position.

The first thing to observe is that free speech is not only a legal, but also an ethical issue that extends far beyond the purview of First Amendment law. That’s because free speech concerns arise in a variety of contexts, from the family to the workplace — indeed, wherever one person or group has the power to sanction others for their speech. It is not my position that in all of these contexts, the scope of permissible speech should be the same. The value of free speech must be weighed against other values, and in different contexts, the results of that weighing exercise may vary. My claim is that in academic institutions, the value of free speech is unusually weighty, and this justifies maintaining a very strong presumption, in this particular context, in favor of not sanctioning speech. So, while the First Amendment is only directly implicated where the government seeks to use the coercive power of the state to censor or otherwise restrict speech, the First Amendment may serve as a useful model for how private universities like the University of Pennsylvania should handle speech.

Academic institutions are where knowledge is generated and transmitted. To do this well requires an open exchange of ideas in which participants can rigorously test arguments and evidence. Any institutional limits upon this exchange inevitably hinder this testing process because they entail that certain ideas are simply beyond the exchange’s scope. While some limits are nevertheless justifiable for the sake of encouraging maximum participation and preventing violence or other serious harm to persons, academic institutions should not draw the line at mere advocacy of violence or crime for a couple of reasons.

First, it would deprive faculty and students of the opportunity to openly and freely examine ideas that might, like or not, have great currency in the wider society. This is particularly lamentable given that a college campus is a relatively safe and civil environment, one much more conducive to productive conversation about difficult topics than others in which students will find themselves after graduation. It is also, at least ideally, an environment relatively free from the kind of political pressures that could make open and free conversation difficult for faculty. For this reason, if a point of view that advocates violence or crime is without merit, the best arguments against it may be generated at a university. If it has merit — I do not presume a priori that any position advocating any kind of violence or crime is without merit — it is likewise at a university that the best arguments for the position may be uncovered.

In other words, it makes no difference that pro-violence ideas may be intellectually indefensible, or that some might wish them consigned to the dustbin of history. Academic institutions perform a public service simply by publicly demonstrating that fact. Moreover, Hannah Arendt said that in every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians — we call them children. Her point was that no generation springs into existence armed with the truths established by its predecessors; each must relearn the hard-won lessons of the past, reflecting upon and deciding for itself what is good and bad, true and untrue. To shut down discussion of ideas we have deemed to be without merit is to tell the next generation of students that we have made up their minds for them. There could be nothing less consistent with the spirit of liberal education, with what Immanuel Kant called Enlightenment, than that.

It may be objected that advocacy of violence per se, in any context, frightens or even traumatizes would-be targets of violence, whether student, faculty, or staff, and this justifies censoring it. But my position is not that advocacy of violence is permissible at any time and place, or in any manner. There are better and worse ways for an institution to handle speech that is capable of harm. My point is simply that the solution cannot be to simply restrict any discussion of ideas supportive of violence, no matter how it is conducted. I have previously made the point that we — that is, free speech proponents, including the liberal Supreme Court of the 1960s that was responsible for so many seminal free speech decisions — do not support free speech because we think speech is harmless. By arguing for the central importance of free speech as a value, we implicitly recognize speech’s power to do evil as well as good. Our position must be that we support free speech despite the harm speech can cause, although we can and should take steps to minimize that harm.

This discussion has, so far, been somewhat abstract. Let me close by considering a concrete hypothetical that illustrates the gulf between my view and Stefanik’s. Suppose that a substantial portion of Americans come to support the involuntary, physical removal of Jews from Palestine, effectively an “ethnic cleansing.” Pundits and politicians start advocating for this position openly. On my view, one role of universities in that scenario would be to serve as a forum for discussion of this idea. Proponents of that view should be invited on campus and debated. Students and faculty, including those sympathetic to the idea, should discuss it at length. The hope would be that by exposing it to the kind of scrutiny that universities can uniquely provide, the idea would be discredited all the more swiftly and comprehensively. There is no guarantee that this would happen, of course. On the other hand, those who hold to the view that advocacy of violence has no place on campuses must insist that, in this world, universities and colleges should shun proponents of the view, insulating their students from exposure to the treacherous currents of thought coursing through the wider society. This, I submit, would be a mistake.

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Creation, Destruction, and the Ethics of “Murderabelia”

absratct image of ink painting

On March 30th 1981, 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Regan. He was convinced that doing so would earn him the affection of the young woman with whom he was obsessed — the 19-year-old actress Jodie Foster, who had recently starred in the film Taxi Driver. Hinckley was successful at shooting the president in the chest, and in the process he also shot Press Secretary James Brady in the head, Secret Security Agent Timothy McCarthy in the side, and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty in the neck. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a psychiatric institution.

Hinckley remained at St. Elizabeth’s for 34 years before he was conditionally released into the care of his mother in 2016. He now owns a shop that sells books and antiques. While institutionalized, Hinckley gained a fondness for expressing himself through art; he paints and also writes and plays music. For many years, if he wanted to display his work, he was required to do so anonymously because of statutes that prohibit convicted criminals from benefiting from the notoriety that they gained from committing their crimes. In October, 2020, he was granted permission by a District Court judge to sign, claim credit for, and sell his work.

Hinckley’s visual art consists mostly of landscapes. Other notorious criminals create art that is more disturbing and intimately connected to the crimes that they have committed. Serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys and burying them in the crawlspace under his family home is infamous for creating art depicting himself as a killer clown. Before he was convicted, Gacy would often dress up as a clown to entertain patients at the local children’s hospital. His art is inseparable from who he was and is as a person; it is a manifestation of the murderous persona that he developed over the course of many tragic years. Arthur Shawcross, murderer of 14 people in the 1980’s, also created art related to his crimes, some of it surprisingly similar to the art created by Gacy. Other killer artists include Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, Anthony Sowell, and Elmer Wayne Henley.

These artifacts produced by incarcerated criminals are trade items in the small but thriving business known as the murderabelia market. Those that deal in this kind of thing obtain letters, artwork, recorded music, and even the hair and skin of notorious criminals. Some true crime aficionados will pay a significant price for these items.

Over the years, many pieces of legislation have been passed in an attempt to ward off the possibility that the commission of a crime, in many cases a serious and violent one, will make various forms of artistic expression more profitable for the person or people who committed it. In the immediate aftermath of the Son of Sam murders that plagued New York City in the summer of 1977, New York passed the Son of Sam Law prohibiting criminals from profiting from expression that is lucrative because of the notoriety that they have gained from their crimes. Many other states quickly followed suit. The law was passed because people believed that David Berkokowitz, the person found legally responsible for the killings, was planning to sell exclusive story rights related to his life and crimes to the publishing company Simon & Schuster. They reasoned that if any money is made from the sale of such items, that money should go to the families of the victims. The company, which was attempting to publish the memoirs of Henry Hill, the FBI informant whose life story would later be dramatized in the movie Goodfellas, sued in 1989. They argued that preventing convicted individuals from expressing themselves in this way violated their First Amendment rights. They won the case in the Supreme Court, which held that the laws were constructed in a way that was too broad to achieve the state’s compelling interest.

Hinckley differs from the other figures listed above. He suffers from mental health issues and the court decided that he could not be held legally responsible for the crimes that he committed for that reason. The attitudes that we have toward criminals frequently turn on the extent to which we believe that they acted freely. If coercive factors were in play such that Hinckley had no real control over whether he shot Regan, we shouldn’t hold him fully responsible for doing so. Certain mental health problems are coercive in this way.

Freedom of expression is important for many reasons, and some of them are therapeutic. Art therapy is used in a variety of settings to deal with trauma and mental health problems. The therapeutic aspects of creating art don’t happen only at the individual level; sharing, interpreting, and discussing art is a social experience. Limiting this form of expression might violate access to our nature as creative and social beings who need these outlets in some form or other to survive and to be psychologically healthy.

That said, there are great discrepancies from one state to the next and from one jury to the next when it comes to how seriously people are willing to take insanity defenses. The legal definition of insanity has nothing to do with whether a person has a diagnosed or diagnosable mental illness and has everything to do with whether the person in question knew the difference between right and wrong at the time that the crime was committed. Some people view mental health problems as coercive factors and others do not. Some of the other convicted criminals who make art could have also been deemed legally insane, had they had a different lawyer, a different jury, a different judge, or been tried in a different state. A similar problem arises when it comes to death penalty sentences — such judgments are often arbitrary and have more to do with where a defendant committed a crime than with the mental state of the accused at the time that it was committed.

Even if there are good reasons to allow the social experience of artistic expression to take place, there may also be legitimate medical and social reasons to prevent it. Hinckley was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and early on doctors feared that social recognition of his art and music might get in the way of his work on that condition. Human beings are both creative and destructive forces. Not all forms of creation are positive, but some of them are so positive that they are life-affirming. Does cutting off all pathways to creation disrespect the dignity of human beings?

There are other cases in which creation is really a form of destruction. Sometimes, the creation of art is a display of hate and violence — not all art is rainbows and rose petals, or even landscapes. What’s more, we often don’t want it to be; it can be important that art is cathartic. That said, sometimes an artist’s intent is to pass along their rage. The artist may want to revictimize the people that they’ve hurt, or to lash out against people they believe have hurt them. Indeed, some families feel crushed when art created by someone who killed their family member is sold. They feel that the perpetrator has not only robbed them of their loved one, but they are taking that crime all the way to the bank.

There are many artists who haven’t been convicted of crimes who have nevertheless done awful things and are terrible human beings. For example, the 20th century artist and architect Eric Gill is now known to have sexually abused his two oldest daughters, yet his art is still featured in exhibitions and is a fixture of private collections. Some of this work even features his nude daughters as subjects. The 16th century artist Caravaggio was violent and was sentenced to death for murder before he fled to Naples, yet his work is displayed at The Louvre in Paris, The Uffizi in Florence, and The National Gallery in London. All of these years removed, much of his art is likely to be more interesting rather than off putting to patrons as result of the profile of the artist. We don’t need to go centuries into the past to witness this phenomenon. The decisions of contemporary politicians may have been the cause of many unnecessary deaths, yet people are inclined to think of that art as charming some decades removed from the fact.

A critical component in the moral assessment of this issue has to do with the people who obtain, sell, and purchase this art. Why is it that a person might want a painting composed by a serial killer to feature prominently in their collection? Perhaps it is a desire to own something noteworthy and unusual that no one else has. It may be an instinct to be, somehow, close to infamy. The fact that these objects are available for sale gives people the opportunity to glorify the wrong people, to look to the worst possible individuals as role models. There is nothing “cool” about John Wayne Gacy. If this art was hanging in a gallery and the artist was unknown, no one would purchase it. It is because the art was created by a serial killer, and not in spite of that fact that led to the purchase of the work. Should we approach all works of art with an empathetic eye, or is there some art to which it is important that we do not relate? Does some art weaken our moral character rather than build on our capacity to view the world in new and diverse ways?

Art is a meaningful part of the human experience. The conditions under which it is made are rich and varied. Our aesthetic experiences and judgments are linked, in many cases, to other kinds of value judgments, which makes these questions very difficult to resolve.

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The Free-Speech Defense and a Defense of Free Speech

Image of two human stick-figures arguing

Of the things about which people across the political spectrum deeply care, morally and politically, freedom of speech is very highly valued – even if there are disagreements about exactly what it licenses you to say and what, if any, caveats should be placed upon it. In recent years free speech has emerged as a hot topic for conservatives – often taking the form of pushback against ‘political correctness.’ The view that ‘liberal’ or ‘left-wing elites’ are trying to silence those who do not gel with a progressive social agenda is a particular flashpoint. 

Yet, in these quarters, one detects a pattern which suggests that the principle itself is not quite what is at stake: those calling for freedom of speech or decrying its endangerment are often simply defending a desire (viewed by them as a right) to say certain things against others for whom those things are offensive or harmful (for examples see my “Separating the Freedom of Religion from the Right to Discriminate” or Kenneth Boyd’s “Online Discourse and the Demand for Civility” also on this site). In many such scenarios there is a legitimate question over whether certain brands of archconservative really are staunch supporters of the principle of free speech ‘all the way down,’ or whether there is a tendency to use the concept as a way of crying foul when someone calls out the noxious content of their views.       

Something like this seems to be the case in a political stoush that has erupted in Australia over the inaugural Australian Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC to be held in Sydney this week. The conference is backed by the powerful American Conservative Union (ACU), and speakers include Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, former Australian prime minister, climate change denier and staunch opponent of marriage equality Tony Abbott, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of Breitbart and an especially noxious misogynistic loudmouth, One Nation politician Mark Latham. 

The caliber of speakers and the conference agenda has many people worried about the echo-chamber of right-wing ideology, as well as the growing influence of American-style firebrand conservatism on Australia. The ACU’s executive director Dan Schneider and ACU chairman Matt Schlapp have joined forces with the Australian right-wing think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the conservative campaign group Advance Australia – two of the event’s major sponsors.

High-profile opposition Labor senator Kristina Keneally criticized the conference, labeling it as a “talkfest of hate,” and called on the government to deny a visa to Raheem Kassam, citing Kassam’s suggestion that Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s mouth and legs should be taped shut “so she can’t reproduce.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended several of his government’s MP’s speaking at the event on the grounds of “the principles of freedom of thought, speech, expression and association.” Daniel Wild, the IPA’s director of research and a speaker at the event, called Keneally’s criticisms “yet another example of how Labor wants to stifle free speech, open discussion and dialogue in Australia. This is a threat to democracy.” Donald Trump Jr. weighed in tweeting: “one of the major political parties in Australia is trying to silence Raheen Kassam because of his conservative views. The insanity needs to stop!”

Free speech is, according to all these defenses, under attack. Luckily, the conference agenda will have this important topic covered. The conference organizer Andrew Cooper said that “It will include a lot of discussion on free speech, and what I would call the authoritarian left’s opposition to it.” 

Freedom of speech is a core tenet of old school political liberalism. The best-known formulation of the argument for freedom of speech is still to be found in John Stuart Mill’s book On Liberty, published in 1859. Mill may be regarded as the father of political liberalism and the book is still one of its central texts. 

A central concern for Mill was the limitation of the coercive power of the state on the freedom of the individual. Mill’s argument for the freedom of thought and discussion is given in chapter 2 of On Liberty, and in it he aims to show that there should be no attempt “to control the expression of opinion.” He argues that truth or falsity of an opinion cannot be a deciding factor in whether that opinion is disseminated, because such a judgment cannot always be made in advance – and if such a judgment cannot always be made with certainty, then it should never be made at all – just in case the judgment turns out to be wrong. In other words, it is better to let some falsehoods roam free than to imprison a truth. 

Mill also thinks that exposure to all views, however erroneous or harebrained, will actually help people’s capacity to discern between truth and falsehood: whether an opinion is true or false, its being aired will, in either case, be useful for discovering and maintaining the truth — and as such should be welcome. To assume that because one thinks a view is false it should be suppressed, Mill argues, is to assume infallibility of one’s beliefs. Yet, he thinks, all of our beliefs must remain open to revision in possible light of further observation. As such, discussion must remain free – even on issues that we think are established with certainty. Mill argues that people are rarely in the position to see the “whole truth” for themselves, and the only way for it to emerge is by “the reconciling and combining of opposites.”

The point, for Mill, is that a liberal democratic society cannot afford to compromise on the principle of absolute freedom of speech because every which way lies the possible suppression of truth, inflated assumptions about one’s own possession of it, and the possibility of the fallibility of one’s views. 

But also, fundamental to Mill’s view is that the truth, or the ‘right’ opinions will ultimately win out; and that prevails upon a particular view of the public’s engagement with political life, commitment to rational and critical thinking, and capacity to detect and then ostracize false opinions. 

Mill’s liberalism puts a lot of faith in individuals as the best judges of whether a viewpoint is truthful and whether it deserves attention and assent. That Mill puts such faith in individuals is one of his philosophy’s merits, and also one of its pitfalls. It is arguable that recent political events in Australia, the USA, and Britain (not to mention many other countries) suggest this expectation may be too optimistic. It is also possible to point to other reasons for such developments which Mill may not have accounted for, such as dangerous forms of populism and demagoguery. 

Nevertheless, support for Mill’s argument for freedom of speech remains solid, and one of its consequences, or costs, is certainly the airing of opinions and views we may not agree with or may not like. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison makes a defense of the CPAC conference almost worthy of Mill in arguing that the way to defeat “unacceptable views is through debate.” 

Two further points are worth noting, as some evocations of freedom of speech as a defense for the airing of certain views don’t quite fit the picture of free speech Mill envisaged. 

First, Mill argues that offensive, incendiary or harmful opinions are not likely to fulfill the role of helping to bring truth to light, and thus do not deserve an equal hearing and do not constitute the kind of ‘debate’ that Morrison apparently wants to defend. 

The second point is that defending the principle of free speech is one thing, and it is generally a good thing, but it does not justify the content expressed. To defend offensive views through reference to the principle of free speech is disingenuous. A leader does not have to hide behind freedom of speech – but is perfectly free to defend the right while also disavowing the message.

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Pastor Fritts, the First Amendment, and Public and Private Reason

photograph of Knox County Sheriff's seal

On June 19th, a restaurant in Tennessee declined to host an event sponsored by a local church group after the church’s pastor made headlines calling for the state-sponsored execution of LGBTQ individuals. All Scripture Baptist Church, an independent congregation in Knoxville led by pastor (and former deputy of the Knox County Sheriff’s office) Grayson Fritts, had planned to hold a ‘Small Town Soul Winning’ event at a Cracker Barrel in Cleveland, TN, but a campaign sparked by the Tennessee Democratic Party quickly led to the popular southern-comfort restaurant chain issuing a statement citing their “zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory treatment or harassment of any sort” as well as their strict prohibition of “any type of protest or public demonstration” on company property. They have advised Fritts and his group that they will not be welcome at any of their locations.

In addition to his hateful comments (which likened LGBTQ people to “freaks” who were “infesting the nation,” called homosexuality a “capital crime” that should be punished with death, and named diseases like HIV and AIDS “their reward for engaging in this kind of behavior”), Pastor Fritts attracted national attention because of his bivocational position as a Knox County sheriff’s deputy. Though Fritts was asked to take a buyout offer for his position and has been placed on leave until it takes effect next month, he has been a government employee for nearly twenty years.

A case like this presents several interesting conflicts: for example, a private citizen publicly calling for violence against a marginalized group is something which clearly violates both ethical and legal norms. Particularly if Fritts’ words incited physical violence, we might rightfully expect him to be held accountable for them. However, Fritts — as citizen — has not (evidently) engaged in physical violence, and has expressed his homophobic preferences under the guise of his religious faith — a category we often take to allow for unusual exceptions for what’s allowed in the realm of speech (if not of other forms of action). If Mr. Fritts thinks that his spirituality entails his anti-LGBTQ position, then he might well expect the freedoms of the First Amendment (including the freedom of speech and religious practice) to protect his expressions from governmental oversight, however unpopular they might be (and provided they do not inspire anyone to action).

However, in addition to his pastoral position, Fritts had (until placed on leave as a consequence of his comments) served as a deputy in the Knox County sheriff’s department. His suggestion that the state should prosecute members of the LGBTQ community, leads to immediate questions about Fritts’ capability to fairly serve as an officer of the law. If the homophobia in his sermon evidenced his true convictions about social policy, then it seems unlikely he would be able to protect and serve the citizens whom he thought deserving of moral punishment. Following the public outcry over his inability to perform his duties in light of his sermon’s content, Fritts was removed from active duty and will soon leave the department.

Western philosophers frequently discuss the importance of free speech, often treating it as one of, if not the, foundation upon which philosophical inquiry can stand. In chapter two of On Liberty, for example, John Stuart Mill famously defended “the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” Granted that they did not incite violence, Mill would generally support Fritts-the-citizens’ expressions — not because he would necessarily agree with the message, but rather because Mill would agree with the quip from Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often mis-attributed to her friend Voltaire or, sometimes, to the American Patrick Henry) that “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Although he too valued free inquiry, Immanuel Kant took a different approach to the free expression of that inquiry. In his 1784 essay “What is Enlightenment?,” Kant explains how the social roles we inhabit limit how we can rightfully behave. When functioning as the representative of an organization – as one does when they wear a uniform or speak in an official capacity – Kant calls this the “private” use of reason (since the speaker’s reasoning abilities are being applied to the private purposes of the group); when arguing on one’s own behalf – in, say, self-published writings under one’s own name – this is Kant’s “public” use of reason.1 Because the development of widespread public use of reason is essential for the continued development of society (“enlightenment”) overall, Kant thought that it should be free in a roughly Millian sense. However, the private use of reason can be rightly constrained in all sorts of ways — particularly if the private application of one person’s reason could limit the public use of another’s.

For example, Kant points out how an officer on duty cannot criticize his orders without undermining the authority of his office; when representing his duties as an officer, the soldier is restricted to obeying his superiors, but when speaking “publicly” as an individual citizen, “he could not rightfully be prevented from taking notice of the mistakes in the military service and from submitting his views to his public for its judgment.” Or, similarly, Kant talks about how citizens are obligated as citizens to pay their taxes, but they are free (as individuals) to express doubts about the propriety of those taxes. This two-tiered split between the public and private spaces is a hallmark feature of post-Enlightenment thinking.

What, then, was Fritts’ sermon doing? Was it the public expression of an individual simply speaking his mind? Or was Fritts acting as a representative of a particular office?

Kant clearly would think the latter. His primary example of a private use of reason which can be easily abused is the office of clergymember who defines certain dogmas as ‘orthodox’ to limit the freedom of church members’ thinking. To Kant, preachers should preach within the boundaries of their ordination; if a preacher wishes to go beyond those doctrines in their personal writings or conversations, they are free to do so – but such distinctions should be clearly marked. By saying anything from the pulpit, it is implied that this is the official position of the organization, just as how saying anything while wearing a uniform lends the authority of that uniform to the words. It is imperative for Kant that individuals like Mr. Fritts, who (at the time) carried both governmental and ecclesial power, make clear in what mode they are speaking – as representatives of their respective organizations or as free individuals with opinions of their own.

Because Fritts was speaking not just as Mr. Fritts, but as Pastor Fritts, Kant would likely support cautionary limitations on his freedom of speech insofar as Fritts’ words conflict with the cohesive message of his religious community as a whole. These restrictions might not take the form of legal proscriptions from the state, but would be the responsibility of the (in-theory) misrepresented group itself to restrain their rogue member. The fact that Fritts’ particular congregation is aligned with his perspective simply means that it would fall to his wider faith community as a whole to condemn his speech and the entirety of the small church body’s viewpoint.

Furthermore, by failing to distinguish between Mr. Fritts, Pastor Fritts, and Officer Fritts, Kant would condemn the improper confusion of multiple public roles. Kant points out in “What is Enlightenment?” that anyone who does believe things contradictory to their office “would not be able to administer his office with a clear conscience. He would have to resign it.” Because Fritts’ speech has given clear evidence that his biases reveal underlying convictions contradictory to a police officer’s oath of public service, Kant would likely doubt Fritts’ ability to perform his sheriff’s duties in the proper way and support his professional removal.

So, as with many things in Kant, the conclusion here is complicated, but at least one thing is clear: he saw the cooptation of another person’s thinking as downright sacrilege, as well as the likely result of misrepresenting a group’s identity. Because enlightenment requires everyone to be able to think for themselves without relying on others to do it for them, Kant thought that everyone should be free to think and argue whatever they like – but in order to think rightly, we need to be able to trust that the representatives of an organization fairly reflect their group. For Pastor Fritts to ostensibly speak for a centuries-old faith community with billions of members worldwide (many of whom are members of the very marginalized group he slandered) – obligates him to treat his words more carefully.

Perhaps this is, in part, why Mr. Fritts’ own Bible cautions people from becoming teachers, lest they “receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).

 

1 Notice that this is roughly backwards from how we often talk about the ‘private’ and ‘public’ categories today. Many thanks to both @ergo_praxis and Florence Bacus (@morallawwithin) for their assistance in clarifying this tricky point of Kant’s. Any confusion of mine that remains is certainly despite their efforts.

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Debating the Permissibility of Printable Guns

Photograph of a 3D printer with a person's hand on a computer mouse nearby

This article has a set of discussion questions tailored for classroom use. Click here to download them. To see a full list of articles with discussion questions and other resources, visit our “Educational Resources” page.

In 2013, Cody Wilson, a self-described anarchist, made headlines when he posted plans for a 3D printable pistol called “The Liberator” online.  The state department intervened and shut down the site, but not before the plans for the weapon were downloaded over a million times.  Wilson promptly sued the government. This week, the government reached a settlement with Wilson.  The settlement is quite favorable to Wilson and other gun rights advocates—it allows Wilson and others to proceed with their mission to post the instructions online. Continue reading “Debating the Permissibility of Printable Guns”

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Manslaughter by Text Message

In 2014, Conrad Roy III, an eighteen-year-old resident of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, committed suicide. Roy placed a generator inside the cab of his pickup truck to facilitate the production and inhalation of a lethal amount of carbon monoxide.

In recent months, Roy had expressed to friends and family that he was in a low place mentally.  He shared details about his psychological state with his girlfriend, Michelle Carter.  In a series of text messages and Facebook correspondence over the course of a few weeks, Carter encouraged Roy to end his own life. “I thought you wanted to do this,” she told him, “The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it! You can’t keep living this way. You just need to do it like you did last time and not think about it and just do it babe. You can’t keep doing this every day.” When he expressed reservations about going through with it, Carter insisted, “You’re just making it harder on yourself by pushing it off, you just have to do it.”  

Continue reading “Manslaughter by Text Message”