A valid question: Could hate speech condition bias in the brain?

Here, we respond to three peer commentaries on our paper, ‘A hypothetical neurological association between dehumanization and human rights abuses’.1 In that paper, we hypothesized that dehumanizing implicit biases dampen the response of neuralmechanisms of pain empathy to (and thereby reduce empathy for) implicitly subordinated or dehumanized targets, perhaps offering some insight into the association of dehumanization with human rights abuses.2 The commentaries we respond to are by Professor Robert Mark Simpson,3 Judge Morris B. Hoffman,4 and Dr Alexandra Roginsky and Professor Alexander Tsesis.5 We thank them all for their time and input. The commentators’ have five general criticisms of our paper. First, Professor Simpson and Judge Hoffman argue that it implicitly or explicitly supports policy or law restricting hate speech. Second, Judge Hoffman questions the science and existence of