You raise some interesting points about slander/libel. I don’t dispute the empirical issue (though differences between American and British law here shouldn’t be overlooked), but I don’t think I’m convinced on the normative front, though your examples have made me less certain of my stance.
As for your last point: whether we as a society agree that the target is entitled to take offense seems like the straightforward operationalization of implementing the two-place function of offense as a one-place function. So when I say “I don’t think X should be considered offensive”, I’m not making any sort of claim about whether any particular person will in fact take offense; the claim I am making is something along the lines of “we should not consider offense taken at X to be justified, and we should not care about said offense, or modify our behavior (i.e. stop saying X) on the basis of said offense”.
I don’t dispute the empirical issue (though differences between American and British law here shouldn’t be overlooked),
Fair enough.
but I don’t think I’m convinced on the normative front, though your examples have made me less certain of my stance.
That’s all I can realistically hope for on a wide-ranging normative issue like this.
Your one-place operationalization of offence sounds reasonable, as does your unpacking of what you mean by “I don’t think X should be considered offensive”. (Although even with your definition, I still think there exists X such that X is both true & offensive.)
You raise some interesting points about slander/libel. I don’t dispute the empirical issue (though differences between American and British law here shouldn’t be overlooked), but I don’t think I’m convinced on the normative front, though your examples have made me less certain of my stance.
As for your last point: whether we as a society agree that the target is entitled to take offense seems like the straightforward operationalization of implementing the two-place function of offense as a one-place function. So when I say “I don’t think X should be considered offensive”, I’m not making any sort of claim about whether any particular person will in fact take offense; the claim I am making is something along the lines of “we should not consider offense taken at X to be justified, and we should not care about said offense, or modify our behavior (i.e. stop saying X) on the basis of said offense”.
Fair enough.
That’s all I can realistically hope for on a wide-ranging normative issue like this.
Your one-place operationalization of offence sounds reasonable, as does your unpacking of what you mean by “I don’t think X should be considered offensive”. (Although even with your definition, I still think there exists X such that X is both true & offensive.)