Some authors claim that hate speech plays a key role in perpetuating unjust social hierarchy. One prima facie plausible hypothesis about how this occurs is that hate speech has a pernicious influence on the attitudes of children. Here I argue that this hypothesis has an important part to play in the formulation of an especially robust case for general legal prohibitions on hate speech. If our account of the mechanism via which hate speech effects its harms is built around claims about hate speech’s influence on children, then we will be better placed to acquire evidence that demonstrates the processes posited in our account, and better placed to ascribe responsibility for these harms to individuals who engage in hate speech. I briefly suggest some policy implications that come with developing an account of the harm of hate speech along these lines.

中文翻译：

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“不会有人考虑一下孩子们吗？” 仇恨言论、伤害和童年

一些作者声称仇恨言论在使不公正的社会等级制度永久化方面起着关键作用。关于这种情况如何发生的一个初步看似合理的假设是仇恨言论对儿童的态度有有害影响。在这里，我认为这个假设在制定一个特别有力的案例中发挥了重要作用，可以在一般法律禁止仇恨言论的情况下发挥作用。如果我们对仇恨言论影响其危害的机制的描述是围绕仇恨言论对儿童的影响的说法建立的，那么我们将更有能力获得证据来证明我们的陈述中设定的过程，并且更有能力将责任归咎于这些对发表仇恨言论的个人造成伤害。我简要地提出了一些政策含义，这些含义是沿着这些路线对仇恨言论的危害进行描述的。