Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Speech, Media, and Ethics. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. £16.99. 216 pp

What is it about?

PART ONE deals with recent controversies over freedom of expression. The first article discusses free expression and its confines when dealing with hate speech. Its focus is on the ethical question of the constraints on speech. Two arguments relating to the ‘Harm Principle’ and the ‘Offence Principle’ are advanced. Under the ‘Harm Principle’, restrictions on liberty may be prescribed when there are sheer threats of immediate violence against some individuals or groups. Under the ‘Offence Principle’, expressions which intend to inflict psychological offence are morally on a par with physical harm and thus there are grounds for abridging them. Moving from theory to practice, in the light of the formulated principles, the ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court which permitted the Nazis to hold a hateful demonstration in Skokie is argued to be flawed. PART TWO focuses attention on freedom of communication and media ethics, a very timely concern in the western world. The essays analyse some of the basic principles, and fallacies, of the media. All these essays formulate ethical limits on the working of the media, emphasising that these should be self-imposed by the media rather than imposed from above by the legislature or the courts. Like the three previous essays they combine theory and practice, and try to set boundaries to free expression. Here the concern lies with the concept of ‘the public’s right to know’ and its ethical constraints.

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Why is it important?

SPEECH, MEDIA, AND ETHICS: THE LIMITS OF FREE EXPRESSION deals with limits on freedom of expression, defined broadly as including the right to demonstrate and to picket, the right to compete in elections, and the right to communicate views via the written and electronic media. Throughout the book moral principles are applied to analyse questions that deal with liberty and its limits.

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