Traces of Violence: Gadamer, Habermas, and the Hate Speech Problem

This Article offers fresh insight into the controversial issue of hate speech regulation by borrowing major themes from the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jürgen Habermas. Wright emphasizes Gadamer's connection between language and historical traditions to demonstrate how hate speech differs from any real attempt at genuine speaking. Wright then focuses on Habermas's notion of a communicative ideal that helps differentiate between speakers who intend to invite open discourse and typical epithet speakers who likely have no such purpose. Wright concludes that the contributions of Gadamer and Habermas enable us to determine what types of speech promote the values underlying freedom of speech and, thus, allow us to restrict speech that fails to do so.