Why Mankind

The question is why a US church Pastor should be allowed to burn the Quran and offend the Islamic religion and not be punished under the law. Legal minds like Mill and Milton have dissected the issue and believe that it comes down to fundamental human rights, in particular freedom of speech. Mill believes that rights should not be impinged on in order to improve man-kind; he believes that this kind of application of the law would result in the end of government. He attempts to replace God (moral code) with humanity in the liberal sense. He states in 'Religion and humanity' that when humanity is elevated to the ultimate source and end of value, the political rulers become, in effect if not in name, the new gods. This statement can be read to mean that the political ruler's word (law) shall be more important than everything even more important than morals (God). Mills believes that the morals of society should be subject to the law and not the other way around. So if one were to take into account the ideas put forward by Mills they would conclude that ones right to freedom of speech should not be impinged simply to improve man-kind's ability tolerate other religions.

The problem faced by this dilemma is that if the rulers of society ban offenses to only one religion (Islam) to avoid serious security threats not only would this stigmatise this religion but it would also favour one minority rather humanity as a whole. The question is how does one balance the rights a few with the rights of the masses. If Islam's right to freedom from discrimination is preserved then then how does one preserve the rest of the worlds populations right to freedom of speech. This is somewhat the question of where do we draw the line with affirmative action.

Bollinger is a philosopher who clashes with the idea that the preservation of western liberal autonomy is most important. In his book The Tolerant Society he shows how absurd it is to let one group offend another in order to exercise their freedom of speech.