Philosophy Research Seminar - Leonie Smith (University of Manchester)
| Dates: | 11 November 2020 |
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| Times: | 15:15 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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This year we are running all of our research seminars online using Zoom. If you would like to attend, and are not included on our events mailing list, please email Dr Stephen Ingram to request the Zoom meeting details.
Seminars will take place on Wednesdays, and will run from 15.15-17.00, with a 5 minute break between the talk and the Q&A. The Zoom meeting will be available to join from 15.00.
Title
- Asylum seekers and group discrimination claims: epistemic agency and personhood
Abstract
- No instance in which the UK print press media (‘PPM’) discriminates against a group of people as a class can ever fall foul of the anti-discrimination guidelines in the Editors’ Code (the industry’s main code of conduct). This results in the main regulatory body for the PPM concluding that articles describing asylum seekers as “a plague of feral humans” are not even investigable on grounds of discrimination (IPSO case: 02741-15 Greer v The Sun). Opponents and proponents of this policy typically frame debate in terms of ‘free speech vs harm’. Specifically, that we need to balance: (A) The need for a free press; with (B) The harms caused to marginalised groups by derogatory reporting. Predictably, little progress is made in either side convincing the other. I argue that we ought to therefore instead assess the PPM’s freedom to report pejoratively on asylum seekers on the basis of the fundamental values from which that freedom is derived. If we find a tension in upholding those values whilst also permitting discriminatory reporting, this would indicate that the policy needs revising, on pain of irrationality. In this paper, I propose one such value, and one such tension.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
This event will run online - contact Stephen Ingram for details on accessing the Zoom meeting.
