Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

What I wonder is why any of the"protected groups" should be afforded more rights than anyone else?

They shouldn't. Protection from hate crimes should be protection for all, against any attempt to harm them because of a group they belong to, whether that 'group' is old white men, like me, or Jewish lesbians. No-one should be afforded more rights than anyone else; hate crime legislation should protect all from the same thing: hate crimes.

If I kill somebody who happens to be a homosexual Native American female - is that a hate crime?

Are you asking this just to be provocative? I think we all know, don't we, what hate crimes are?

So if you killed that poor person because they were "homosexual", or because they were "Native American" or "female", then it's a hate crime. If you killed them for something *they* did, not some grouping they belong to, then it's plain old murder.

[Pattern-chaser]

If a white man is mugged, is it more wrong if the perpetrator is a black man ? If a black man is mugged, is it more wrong if the perpetrator is a white man?

More (intentionally?) provocative and misleading questions. It is only "more wrong", according to hate crime laws, if the black man mugged the white man *because* he was white. And so on.





I agree with the other, seemingly more even-handed, stuff you posted. Any law must be carefully balanced if it is to achieve its intended purpose.

[Fried Egg]

The title "hate crime" should be dropped permanently. The crime itself should be retained, I think, and all loopholes sealed. Perhaps we could call it member-ism? For we can all agree — can't we? — that to attack someone who has done nothing, except belong to the hated group, is a criminal act?

An unprovoked physical attack should always be considered a crime, certainly. But I think that the motivation behind the attack in no way elevates the severity of the crime. One might allow there there are sometimes mitigating circumstances that should allow for a lighter sentence than would otherwise have been the case (prejudice based on group identity not being one of those of course). The maliciousness in the way the crime was carried out might call for a weightier sentence perhaps, but again, the motivation of the perpetrator shouldn't be a factor.

What about verbal or written hate crime? I can insult somebody to my heart's content as long as I avoid racial, sexist, homophobic or transgender slurs. In which case it becomes a (hate) crime. Or maybe somebody simply perceives hatred in what I said and it gets reported as a "non crime hate incident"?

[LuckyR]

The title "hate crime" should be dropped permanently. The crime itself should be retained, I think, and all loopholes sealed. Perhaps we could call it member-ism? For we can all agree — can't we? — that to attack someone who has done nothing, except belong to the hated group, is a criminal act?

An unprovoked physical attack should always be considered a crime, certainly. But I think that the motivation behind the attack in no way elevates the severity of the crime. One might allow there there are sometimes mitigating circumstances that should allow for a lighter sentence than would otherwise have been the case (prejudice based on group identity not being one of those of course). The maliciousness in the way the crime was carried out might call for a weightier sentence perhaps, but again, the motivation of the perpetrator shouldn't be a factor.

What about verbal or written hate crime? I can insult somebody to my heart's content as long as I avoid racial, sexist, homophobic or transgender slurs. In which case it becomes a (hate) crime. Or maybe somebody simply perceives hatred in what I said and it gets reported as a "non crime hate incident"?

What in your mind is the dividing line between insults and threats?

[Good_Egg]

I think we all know, don't we, what hate crimes are?

I disagree. And am generally suspicious of any line of argument based on "we all know" - these words are too often used to cover up equivocation.

Seems to me that we need to distinguish 4 propositions:

A) that a crime committed from a motive of hate is somehow more serious and deserving of a heavier punishment than the same criminal action performed from some other motive.

B) that an act that is not a crime becomes a crime if committed with such a motive.

C) that hate for some value of a "protected characteristic" is worse than other types of hate

D) that dissent - from an official narrative that all values of a protected characteristic are equally good - constitutes hate.

My view is that A) is basically true. And is consistent with a system of justice in which a perpetrator is convicted only if found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but is given a lighter or heavier sentence according to the judge's necessarily-subjective assessment of their state of mind.

B) seems to me unjust because of the difficulty of establishing another person's motive beyond reasonable doubt.

The argument presented for C) is that hate for a group has greater "wider community impact" than hate for an individual. Which is true, but does not justify protected characteristics - hate for any shared characteristic has that greater wider impact.

And D) is just wrong - it's a slur of the egalitarian Left against political opponents.

So the label "hate crime" is deceptive - seeking to secure agreement for false propositions by mislabelling them to make them sound like a true one.

[Gertie]

I have been pondering the concept for some time and I am becoming increasingly sceptical that the concept of hate crimes should have a place in law.

So what exactly is a hate crime? The legal definition might vary from place to place but here in the UK it is defined as:

Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.

And what is the effect of something being deemed a "hate crime"? It can lead to one of two outcomes:

1) A heavier sentence being awarded than would otherwise have been the case had the crime not been regarded as hateful. i.e. if you were convicted of assault, you might get a longer sentence if it is also judged that you targeted your victim because you hated their protected group identity.

2) Something that would not otherwise have been a crime may be treated as a crime if it is regarded as hateful. Such as verbal abuse or incitement to hatred.

Now, let me be clear. I am not condoning hateful behaviour or justifying it in any way. I think it is usually morally reprehensible. But I think it is problematic to incorporate it into law and the criminal justice system.

Firstly, I do not think the criminality of an action should in anyway rest on the perception of the victim (or even a random passer by). It should be an objectively measurable fact.

Secondly, why is the impact of a crime really greater on the victim if it happened to have been hateful? If someone murders me, it doesn't make me any more dead if they did it because of my race.

Thirdly, it is only certain characteristics that are "protected", certain group identities. Someone might attack me because they hate me on a personal level but that's not considered a hate crime. They might do it because they hate ginger people but still that's fine. But if it's the wrong kind of hate, such as for being gay, that makes it much worse?

Fourthly, if an action (or something that is said) is not considered a crime in the absence being considered hateful of a particular group, it should not be considered a crime at all. It becomes a multi-tiered justice system that treats people differently based on their group identities (or the group identity of their victims).

And of course there is the code of practice that police have (in England and Wales) to record and retain information pertaining to Non Crime Hate Incidents (NCHI's) whereby incidents are reported to the police of incidents that are perceived to be (by anyone other than the subject) as actions (or speech) that are considered to be motivated by prejudice or hostility towards persons with a particular characteristic. They do not themselves meet the criteria for being treated as a crime but the incidents may be recorded and retained for later use, perhaps as supporting evidence in a future prosecution of a hate crime of that individual. If such an incident is recorded and retained by the police, they must contact and notify the individual in question, but they will not tell them who made the complaint nor what the alleged incident was.

Are you the same poster as ''good egg?

[Lagayascienza]

I've gotten them them mixed up a couple of times, Gertie.

[Pattern-chaser]

The title "hate crime" should be dropped permanently. The crime itself should be retained, I think, and all loopholes sealed. Perhaps we could call it member-ism? For we can all agree — can't we? — that to attack someone who has done nothing, except belong to the hated group, is a criminal act?

An unprovoked physical attack should always be considered a crime, certainly. But I think that the motivation behind the attack in no way elevates the severity of the crime.

We've already noted, I think, the clear and meaningful difference between murder and manslaughter, which depends on "motivation". And anything, including "motivation", that makes the crime or its consequences more "severe", makes the whole situation more extreme, and worthy of greater punishment (following a guilty verdict, of course).

One might allow there there are sometimes mitigating circumstances that should allow for a lighter sentence than would otherwise have been the case (prejudice based on group identity not being one of those of course). The maliciousness in the way the crime was carried out might call for a weightier sentence perhaps, but again, the motivation of the perpetrator shouldn't be a factor.

I think the difference, here, between "maliciousness" and "motivation" is a bit subtle, don't you?

What about verbal or written hate crime? I can insult somebody to my heart's content as long as I avoid racial, sexist, homophobic or transgender slurs. In which case it becomes a (hate) crime. Or maybe somebody simply perceives hatred in what I said and it gets reported as a "non crime hate incident"?

Verbal and written need not be separated, but often are, traditionally. That's why slander and libel are separate crimes.

And now you are 'pretending', again, that the difference between any old crime and a hate crime is unclear. It isn't. If the crime is committed against me because I am (e.g.) a male, not for any other reason, that is a hate crime. And it doesn't matter whether the crime is committed verbally or in writing; the hatred remains the same. Simples.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think we all know, don't we, what hate crimes are?

I disagree. And am generally suspicious of any line of argument based on "we all know" - these words are too often used to cover up equivocation.

Seems to me that we need to distinguish 4 propositions:

A) that a crime committed from a motive of hate is somehow more serious and deserving of a heavier punishment than the same criminal action performed from some other motive.

B) that an act that is not a crime becomes a crime if committed with such a motive.

C) that hate for some value of a "protected characteristic" is worse than other types of hate

D) that dissent - from an official narrative that all values of a protected characteristic are equally good - constitutes hate.

My view is that A) is basically true. And is consistent with a system of justice in which a perpetrator is convicted only if found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but is given a lighter or heavier sentence according to the judge's necessarily-subjective assessment of their state of mind.

B) seems to me unjust because of the difficulty of establishing another person's motive beyond reasonable doubt.

The argument presented for C) is that hate for a group has greater "wider community impact" than hate for an individual. Which is true, but does not justify protected characteristics - hate for any shared characteristic has that greater wider impact.

And D) is just wrong - it's a slur of the egalitarian Left against political opponents.

So the label "hate crime" is deceptive - seeking to secure agreement for false propositions by mislabelling them to make them sound like a true one.

We have already discussed and agreed, I think, that the label "hate crime" is an unhelpful misnomer. But that's just a bad choice of label, and does nothing to discredit the whole idea. You talk of "equivocation", but your primary aim here seems to be to defend your view on your chosen topic, no matter what?

You point out that hate crimes are misleading as described, but oddly, on the way, you fail to make the basic observation that nearly all crimes involve a degree of hate or hatred.

As I suggested in another post, hate crime could more clearly be labelled "member-ism" or "group-ism", indicating that the crime committed is aimed at — and hits!! — a whole group of people, who are only represented by the (usually singular) victim. That's what makes it different and more serious: the crime is committed against many people, maybe even billions of them (if the crime is one that takes aim at the group we label "women", for example).

[Fried Egg]

The title "hate crime" should be dropped permanently. The crime itself should be retained, I think, and all loopholes sealed. Perhaps we could call it member-ism? For we can all agree — can't we? — that to attack someone who has done nothing, except belong to the hated group, is a criminal act?

An unprovoked physical attack should always be considered a crime, certainly. But I think that the motivation behind the attack in no way elevates the severity of the crime.

We've already noted, I think, the clear and meaningful difference between murder and manslaughter, which depends on "motivation". And anything, including "motivation", that makes the crime or its consequences more "severe", makes the whole situation more extreme, and worthy of greater punishment (following a guilty verdict, of course).

Not at all, the difference between murder and manslaughter (or murder 1 and murder 2 for Americans) is one of pre-meditation, not motivation. So I stand by my claim above. You may disagree with me of course, but that's what this thread is about.

I think the difference, here, between "maliciousness" and "motivation" is a bit subtle, don't you?

Not at all. For example, if I had been convicted for murder and I had been found to have tortured my victim first, I might be judged to have been more malicious. The motivation has nothing to do with it. The maliciousness is revealed by my actions.

And now you are 'pretending', again, that the difference between any old crime and a hate crime is unclear. It isn't. If the crime is committed against me because I am (e.g.) a male, not for any other reason, that is a hate crime. And it doesn't matter whether the crime is committed verbally or in writing; the hatred remains the same. Simples.

Any kind of legal judgement that relies on establishing the contents of the perpetrators inner thoughts is never going to be simple by virtue of the fact that it relies on inferring something rather than the measurement of objectively verifiable facts.

Furthermore, one's motivations are usually complex, involving a large variety of factors where hate of a group identity might be present to greater or lesser degrees. If it is one of the lesser factors, is is still a hate crime?

And in practice, the distinction is far from clear. For instance, some transgender activists have lobbied for deliberate misgendering to be classed as a hate crime. I would strongly disagree with this idea (but might accept that it is at least impolite) but the point here is that it is not always clear when somebody says something whether they were being hateful.

Personally, I think people should be free to say things that I might consider hateful. Where we draw the line is where people are directly inciting people to imminently carry out criminal acts. (i.e. I think the American protections of free speech are about right on this matter).

[Good_Egg]

We have already discussed and agreed, I think, that the label "hate crime" is an unhelpful misnomer. But that's just a bad choice of label, and does nothing to discredit the whole idea.

So what would be a good label, and why does the bad label persist ?

An accurate label might be "crimes against protected characteristics" - CAPC for short. I suggest that the reason proponents of such measures don't like that is that it puts the emphasis on the (amoral and essentially arbitrary) decision of government as to what characteristics to put on the protected list. Whereas "hate crime" achieves emotional resonance by labelling the act with the evil of hatred, whether or not it is in fact present in any particular case (see D above).

You talk of "equivocation", but your primary aim here seems to be to defend your view on your chosen topic, no matter what?

Not at all. My aim is to clarify, to analyse, to dissect. To work out what is good/bad/right/wrong about the idea, to separate the true arguments from the false.

If I independently reach a conclusion that you've already come to, that's good. We agree.
So maybe we can drop the word "hate" from this thread from now on ?

(Note in passing that your misreading of my intent here underscores the difficulty of reliably inferring motive for crimes. Relying on a reading of another's motive as a basis for whether or not a crime has been committed is a bad idea.)

As I suggested in another post, hate crime could more clearly be labelled "member-ism" or "group-ism", indicating that the crime committed is aimed at — and hits!! — a whole group of people, who are only represented by the (usually singular) victim. That's what makes it different and more serious: the crime is committed against many people, maybe even billions of them (if the crime is one that takes aim at the group we label "women", for example).

As I've said, this is a valid argument - for the seriousness of terrorism, and of the wider impact of all crime. It's not an argument that supports the distinction between protected and non-protected characteristics.

For example, someone may feel afraid to go out at night after a spate of crimes, even if every single one of those crimes was motivated by something that has nothing to do with them.

A random mugging impacts everyone. A mugging that is obviously targeted against a Clelsea supporter because they are a Chelsea supporter is a "group-ist" crime in your terminology. But thereby has less wider impact...

[Fried Egg]

An interesting and pertinent case at the moment in the UK is the British Muslim's proposal to update the definition of "Islamaphobia" in UK law. The proposal is currently being considered by the government but there are a number of groups that have expressed concerns that it "...does not sufficiently differentiate between (i) prejudice and discriminatory actions against people who identify or are identified as Muslim, and (ii) criticism of the beliefs, ideas, and practices that might fall under the umbrella of Islam. It poses a risk to legitimate freedom of speech and thought and of religion or belief and it also threatens to give inadvertent succour to extreme Islamic groups abroad, including some Islamic states at the UN who use accusations of Islamophobia to silence criticisms of the human rights abuses they perpetrate." (quote from Humanists UK).

The above example illustrates the difficulty in drawing the line between between tackling hate crime and protecting free speech. There is an inherent tension here. And we certainly don't all agree on where to draw the line.

[Good_Egg]

I find that I'm a little surprised that UK law has a definition of "Islamophobia".

Does it also define "phobias" about Protestantism or Zen Buddhism ?

How can that possibly be consistent with the notion of equality under the law ?

You're familiar with the concept of reification error... ?

[Fried Egg]

It's quite disturbing really. Only yesterday, during parliaments' "question time" an MP asked Keir Starmer if he would “commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions”. Is this essentially a call for the re-introduction of blasphemy laws, justified under the guise of protecting a "marginalized" group (in this case Muslims) from "hate" crime?

In my opinion, we are already not doing enough to protect freedom of speech. In 2021, a teacher from a grammar School was forced into hiding and received death threats after showing an illustration of the prophet Muhammad in class.

When protecting people from "hate" becomes protecting people from being offended, we have definitely gone too far.

[Gertie]

I've gotten them them mixed up a couple of times, Gertie.

They have a lot of similarities. And ignoring the question pretty much confirms it for me. Bit weird to reply to your own thread with a sock tho.