Protective Falsehoods

Public discourse is rife with speech—most notably hate speech—that inflicts severe harm on vulnerable groups. In this context, a core function of democratic public discourse is to protect members of the targeted groups from discursive harm. This protective speech (or ‘counterspeech’) usually involves saying something true. In some cases, however, counterspeakers strategically misrepresent relevant social facts. Chapter 5 scrutinizes this practice. I contend that falsehoods can play a valuable role within counterspeech, notably by making demonstrations of hate, as well as targeted groups’ own vulnerability, less salient to those groups. I then clarify the conditions under which it is permissible to deploy such protective falsehoods by addressing four key objections: that protective falsehoods are not needed to counteract the harm in hate speech; that they gaslight vulnerable groups; that they expose such groups to an excessive risk of harm; and, finally, that they are objectionably paternalistic.