%0 Journal Article
%T Regulating offense, nurturing offense
%A Robert Mark Simpson
%J Politics, Philosophy & Economics
%@ 1741-3060
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1470594X17741228
%X Joel FeinbergĄ¯s Offense to Others is the most comprehensive contemporary work on the significance of offense in a liberal legal system. Feinberg argues that being offended can impair a personĄ¯s liberty, much like a nuisance, and that it is therefore legitimate in principle to regulate conduct because of its offensiveness. In this article, I discuss some overlooked considerations that give us reason to resist FeinbergĄ¯s conclusion, even while granting this premise. My key claim is that the regulation of offense can inadvertently increase the incidence of offense, by nurturing offense-taking sensibilities. In the course of defending this claim and spelling out its implications, I explain why concerns about the inadvertent nurturing of offense are now more pressing, given the identity¨Cpolitical character of contemporary offense-based social conflicts, and I discuss why a reluctance to legally regulate offensive conduct need not be insensitive to the identity¨Cpolitical issues that animate those conflicts
%K offense
%K liberalism
%K free speech
%K Joel Feinberg
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1470594X17741228