NCJ Number
122378
Journal
Duke Law Journal Volume: 1989 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1989) Pages: 433-437
Date Published
1989
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Some narrowly defined categories of speech such as threats, involuntary hypnosis, and pornography merit less protection under the first amendment because of the ways in which they communicate their messages.
Abstract
To determine which categories of speech merit less protection, it is necessary to determine whether their appeal is to cognitive or non-cognitive capacities. Professor Chevigny is not correct in asserting that the distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive is incoherent. First amendment doctrine should and does treat some forms of speech such as assaults, threats, and some pornography differently from others and should and does designate them as high value or low value forms of speech depending on the ways they communicate their messages. Violent pornography is not in the same category of free expression as is political speech or the works of scientists and scholars. 19 footnotes.