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That's not true at all; threats, for instance, are not incitements to violence, yet they cause harm. Fraud can be speech, but it is harmful. One philosopher not

That's not true at all; threats, for instance, are not incitements to violence, yet they cause harm. Fraud can be speech, but it is harmful. One philosopher noted how in his profession, if someone broke his left leg, this would not even compare to the kind of harm he'd suffer if someone wrote an slanderous piece against him and published it in a big newspaper. "Whites only" signs can be said to cause harm. Put it this way: if speech cannot cause any harm, then it would be almost pointless to have a law which guarantees freedom of speech. Aside from all this, the first source I linked is a good paper that already goes over this distinction of harm which you've outlined and how baseless it is. As I have already said: there is no metaphysical difference between speech and non-speech actions: >I argued that all speech is conduct, involving an agent, and all conduct, being intentional action, is expressive (of the motivating intention); that speech does not differ from other conduct in being context-dependent and subject to interpretation; that speech is a physical phenomenon, having physical effects on its listeners, effects which can be caused by the content of the speech; and that verbal assaults can be harmful in the same ways that assaults involving direct bodily contact are. For these (and other) reasons, I concluded that the attempt to assimilate freedom of speech to freedom of thought and in that way distinguish it from freedom of action fails.

jessaustin 8y ago
Speech and violence are both expressive intentional action, therefore they are the same? This seems a very basic sort of logical error. (Perhaps affirming the consequent?)
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  No. You've misread the argument; she is only enumerating what she has deduced, and the first deduction is that speech and physical assault are both expressive intentional action. This premise was in doubt in the paper she was responding to. She never claims that speech and physical assault are at all the same, but rather, that speech does not merit a special category when differentiated from other actions.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    "Special category"? This implies that all is forbidden unless specifically allowed. That is a recipe for an authoritarian hellscape. We don't live in that world. Violence is the special category, because some is allowed and some is not.
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      That's not the case; if speech is considered an action like any other, it can be regulated like any other action. The implication is not that actions are forbidden unless they are specifically allowed. You aren't specifically allowed to eat fries or post comments on HN - yet you do so anyway. And you would, rightly, resist a law which says you can't, just as you'd resist a law which contravenes a constitutional right to freedom of speech.
      - jessaustin 8y ago
        OK you finally confused me enough that I had to click through your link and read. I was somewhat disconcerted that the first thing I read was "please don't distribute this link publicly" (was that ironic?). Later on when discussing the crux of this thread (is there a significant difference between speech and other physical actions?), the author dropped an "[as] I’ve argued in previous work..." on us. There is reference to the mind-body problem, and there is some teasing about apparent contradictions perceived in random writings about speech, but no actual argument on this particular topic exists at this link. Like much contemporary philosophy, this whole thing misses the forest for the trees. Toward the end the author quoted Schauer thus: The ache, it seems to me, is caused by the fact that although the answer to ‘Must speech be special?’ is probably ‘Yes’, the answer to ‘Is speech special?’ is probably ‘No’.” Can we just accept this as a compromise? Truth is less important than practice. Authorities at every level seek constantly to police the acceptable boundaries of public thought. They do this for their own interest. The justice system is not and cannot be perfect, especially in defending the public from that policing. A special status for speech is an important bulwark against authoritarianism.
        8y ago
nradov 8y ago
What you linked is not a good paper, it's pseudo-intellectual garbage dressed up with fancy words to intimidate the ignorant. Since speech is fundamentally different from physical conduct, the basic premise is invalid. Thus the argument is unworthy of serious consideration.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  The author has attempted to show rationally that speech is not fundamentally different from physical conduct. You are simply asserting that it is. That's not very convincing.
  - nradov 8y ago
    If that was what the author was attempting then she totally failed at it and wasted everyone's time. Rationality doesn't get you anywhere when your starting assumptions are wrong or lack support from fundamental, universal principles. Garbage in / garbage out.
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      Which starting assumptions are wrong? Which fundamental, universal principles were ignored?

jessaustin 8y ago

Speech and violence are both expressive intentional action, therefore they are the same? This seems a very basic sort of logical error. (Perhaps affirming the consequent?)

claudiawerner 8y ago
No. You've misread the argument; she is only enumerating what she has deduced, and the first deduction is that speech and physical assault are both expressive intentional action. This premise was in doubt in the paper she was responding to. She never claims that speech and physical assault are at all the same, but rather, that speech does not merit a special category when differentiated from other actions.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  "Special category"? This implies that all is forbidden unless specifically allowed. That is a recipe for an authoritarian hellscape. We don't live in that world. Violence is the special category, because some is allowed and some is not.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    That's not the case; if speech is considered an action like any other, it can be regulated like any other action. The implication is not that actions are forbidden unless they are specifically allowed. You aren't specifically allowed to eat fries or post comments on HN - yet you do so anyway. And you would, rightly, resist a law which says you can't, just as you'd resist a law which contravenes a constitutional right to freedom of speech.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      OK you finally confused me enough that I had to click through your link and read. I was somewhat disconcerted that the first thing I read was "please don't distribute this link publicly" (was that ironic?). Later on when discussing the crux of this thread (is there a significant difference between speech and other physical actions?), the author dropped an "[as] I’ve argued in previous work..." on us. There is reference to the mind-body problem, and there is some teasing about apparent contradictions perceived in random writings about speech, but no actual argument on this particular topic exists at this link. Like much contemporary philosophy, this whole thing misses the forest for the trees. Toward the end the author quoted Schauer thus: The ache, it seems to me, is caused by the fact that although the answer to ‘Must speech be special?’ is probably ‘Yes’, the answer to ‘Is speech special?’ is probably ‘No’.” Can we just accept this as a compromise? Truth is less important than practice. Authorities at every level seek constantly to police the acceptable boundaries of public thought. They do this for their own interest. The justice system is not and cannot be perfect, especially in defending the public from that policing. A special status for speech is an important bulwark against authoritarianism.
      - 8y ago

nradov 8y ago

What you linked is not a good paper, it's pseudo-intellectual garbage dressed up with fancy words to intimidate the ignorant. Since speech is fundamentally different from physical conduct, the basic premise is invalid. Thus the argument is unworthy of serious consideration.

claudiawerner 8y ago
The author has attempted to show rationally that speech is not fundamentally different from physical conduct. You are simply asserting that it is. That's not very convincing.
- nradov 8y ago
  If that was what the author was attempting then she totally failed at it and wasted everyone's time. Rationality doesn't get you anywhere when your starting assumptions are wrong or lack support from fundamental, universal principles. Garbage in / garbage out.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    Which starting assumptions are wrong? Which fundamental, universal principles were ignored?