Should We Protect Animals from Hate Speech?

Abstract

Laws against hate speech protect members of certain human groups. However, they do not offer protection to nonhuman animals. Using racist hate speech as our primary example, we explore the discrepancy between the legal response to hate speech targeting human groups and what might be called anti-animal or speciesist hate speech. We explore two sets of possible defences of this legal discrepancy drawn from the philosophical literature on hate speech - non-consequentialist and harm-based - and find both wanting. We thus conclude that, absent a compelling alternative argument, there is no in-principle reason to support the censure of racist hate speech but not the censure of speciesist hate speech.