Social Justice Issue: Should Freedom of Speech be Bounded by Certain Exceptions?

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
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Author Note

1SOCIOLOGY
Social justice question:
Introduction
The term social justice issue” can be defined as the issue faced by human beings when
discrimination takes place on the basis of age, gender, religion as well as sexuality. Freedom of
expression is a fundamental human right since it posses the potential to help the society to
develop as well as progress. However, it has been found that several times right to free
expression leads to ignorance of the degree to which an individual can express their state of
mind. According to plato.stanford.edu, being a qualified right, there are a good number of
exception of free expression that includes threats to commit violence, criminal conspiracy and
others. In the following paragraphs the research question that includes if free speech should be
bounded by certain exceptions or not, has been discussed.
Discussion
In the year 2015, 7th January, twelve people who worked in Charlie Hebdoa satirical
magazine was murdered by two members of Al-Queda for practicing their freedom of expression
through the satirical maize. The chief reason behind the attack as was stated was repeated
Prophet Muhammad in the cartoons that were of questionable state (Nussbaum, pp. 843). The
point that needs to be highlighted includes ISIS has praised the action of killing. However this
act has been heavily criticized by other Muslim commentators. Thus, a major issue of violation
of social justice can be evidenced since the individuals were killed for expressing their opinion to
the society.
Each and every individual with progressive outlook believe that the freedom of criticizing
the government should be given to the society. However, as per Davidson, there should be good

2SOCIOLOGY
arguments for the position that freedom of speech should be coupled with a clearly stated
definition of social responsibility.
According to plato.stanford.edu, the topic freedom of speech can be defined as one of the
most contentious issues in liberal society. Each and every society places some major limitations
on the society members since it takes place within a context of competing values. This point has
been supported by Stanley Fish as he stated that the concept of free speech that is not confined
by any factors does not exist. He stated that free speech is not an independent variable but a
political prize. This point has also been supported by Haworth as he stated that freedom is speech
is not something an individual own and hence posses a good amount of limitation. A good
number of activities that encapsulates the concept of speech include writing, singing, speaking,
burning flags, yelling and others (Smith, pp.54). However, some forms of the communications
are crucial than others and hence need different levels of protection. In case two speech acts
contradicts a decision needs to be made for prioritizing one over the other. That means that there
can be no unlimited right to free speech.
However arguments that defend speech on the basis of democratic ground possess a good
number of parts. According to Nussbaum, arguments that defend speech on the basis of
democratic grounds possess a good number of parts. It has also been claimed by the researcher
that public needs a great deal of information for making informed decisions. Along with that,
when it comes to government, being the servant of the common people, information should not
be censored (Campbell, pp.23). These types of arguments demonstrate that the chief reasons
behind justifying free speech are crucial not only for exercising the right but also for allowing he
society the value of democracy. According to the utilitarianism theory, freedom of speech can be
considered as the instrument that maximizes the amount of truth that is available to the society as