Symposium

In the Ancient Greek world (the world of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, often regarded as the birthplace of philosophy) a “symposium” was a banquet held after a meal, an “after party” of sorts that usually included drinking, dancing, recitals, and engaging conversations on the topics of the day.
For our purposes in this course, the Symposium discussions will not involve dancing, recitals, or a banquet, but they will provide food for thought on current ethical issues and direct application of the ethical theory discussed in each of these weeks.
It is almost impossible these days to turn on the news or log onto social media without encountering a controversy that cries out for ethical discussion. For these Symposium discussions, your instructor will choose a topic of current ethical interest and a resource associated with it for you to read or watch. Your task is to consider how the ethical theory of the week might be used to examine, understand, or evaluate the issue.
This week, you will consider how utilitarianism applies to a controversy, dilemma, event, or scenario selected by your instructor. It is a chance for you to discuss together the ethical issues and questions that it raises, your own response to those, and whether that aligns with or does not align with a utilitarian approach. The aim is not to simply assert your own view or to denigrate other views, but to identify, evaluate, and discuss the moral reasoning involved in addressing the chosen issue.
Your posts should remain focused on the ethical considerations, and at some point in your contribution you must specifically address the way a utilitarian would approach this issue by explaining and evaluating that approach.
If you have a position, you should strive to provide reasons in defense of that position.
When responding to peers, you should strive to first understand the reasons they are offering before challenging or critiquing those reasons. One good way of doing this is by summarizing their argument before offering a critique or evaluation.
For our first symposium, we’re going to consider hate speech in light of the First Amendment, which ensures that all citizens have the right to free speech. Before you begin work on this assignment, please read the article or watch the TED Talk video on free speech by attorney Lee Rowland, at these links –
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/free-speech-can-be-messy-we-need-it

Address these questions in your posts:
Should we protect the right to public hate speech based on First Amendment or should public hate speech be a crime? Make sure to apply and discuss the theory of utilitarianism, which suggests that an action is morally right or wrong if it achieves the best possible results for all those affected. If we accept utilitarianism as the right explanation of what morality amounts to, should we conclude that the First Amendment should protect public hate speech or that public hate speech should be a crime?

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