Five inadequacies in how political philosophers talk about offence

Dr Robert Simpson (Monash Philosophy)

Abstract: Offence is not just some arcane topic for political philosophers to ponder. Incidents of offence-causing and offence-taking are highly visible -- and in some cases have far-reaching consequences -- in the contemporary world. Think of the Danish Cartoons controversy in 2006, or The Innocence of Muslims incident last year, or the furore surrounding Jerry Springer the Opera in the UK, or the meltdown about Bill Henson's photography in Australia. What should governments and societies at large do about cases like these, in which actions and expressions cause grave offence, and thereby initiate significant social unrest? A few prominent philosophers -- like Joel Feinberg, Judith Thomson, Martha Nussbaum, Jeremy Waldron, Ronald Dworkin, and Andrew von Hirsch -- have written about offence. But the philosophical literature on this topic seems to me decidedly inadequate, and in more ways that one. In this paper I'll begin the process of clearing ground for a new normative theory of offence. (The sought-after theory will be 'normative' in the sense that it will set out to say what, if anything, ought to be done about offensive conduct.) My approach to the task will be to outline some deficiencies in extant philosophical treatments of offence. I'll draw attention to (and rail against) the following five things: (1) the frequent use of wide-ranging catch-all definitions of offence; (2) the apparently widespread notion that offence is something which, in some sense, simply 'befalls' people; (3) the suggestion that we might get somewhere in our treatment of this topic by invoking a notion of 'reasonable' offence; (4) the enduring, Panglossian appeal of the idea that offence can be beneficial; and (5) above all, the failure of those who theorise about offence to understand offence as a manifestation of identity-political conflict, rather than some essentially private and individualised reaction to things.