Faculty Workshop – Samuel Director (University of Richmond)

Samuel Director (University of Richmond) will present a paper titled “Social Sanctions, Criticism, and Speech.”

Guests are welcome. Lunch will be provided. To reserve a spot, please email the director of the institute, Michael Douma ()

This event will be held in Hariri room 570.

The paper abstract reads:

At several points in On Liberty, Mill suggests that social sanctions on speech are deeply concerning, perhaps even more concerning than legal sanctions on speech. This is odd. Clearly, legal sanctions on speech pose a greater threat to freedom of speech than social sanctions, which are not enforced with the power of the state. Although I will not defend Mill’s claim that social sanctions are more concerning than legal sanctions, I will argue that we have not paid sufficient attention to the way that informal rules and social structures impose immense pressure on the speech of individuals. Recently, there has been extensive societal wrestling concerning social pressures and sanctions on individual speech. This paper explores this, specifically the phenomenon that has become known as “cancel culture,” although the phenomenon far predates this term. In this paper, I offer a definition of cancel culture and contrast it with a culture of criticism. I then proceed to analyze why cancellation is often morally problematic and not conducive to liberal society. Along the way, I address common objections.