This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy: free speech fallacy (FS). The FS consists in thinking one's political right to freedom of expression includes protection from criticism. Those who commit this fallacy allege that critical scrutiny is either tantamount to censorship or equivalent to the imposition of one's views on others. The error in the fallacy is that the freedom of expression includes critical expressions. The trouble with the argument is that freedom of (...) expression does not mean freedom from criticism. The first distortion concerns the logical consequences of criticism. The second distortion confuses logical implications of criticism with the criticism itself. The FS thus takes the personal implications, necessary though they may be, as the defining features of criticism, when they are merely incidental. (shrink)

Western European liberal democracies have recently enacted laws that prohibit the diffusion of fake news on social media. Yet, many consider that such laws are incompatible with freedom of expression. In this paper, I argue that democratic governments have strong pro tanto reasons to prohibit fake news, and that doing so is compatible with free speech. First, I show that fake news disrupts a mutually beneficial form of epistemic dependence in which members of the public are engaged with (...) journalists. Second, I contend that laws against fake news enhance rather than thwart personal autonomy. If these suggestions are plausible, then the same considerations about truth and autonomy that underpin the value of free speech give us reasons to prohibit fake news. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the ethical and conceptual relationship between free speech and press freedom. Many authors have argued that, despite there being some common ground between them, these two liberties should be treated as properly distinct, both theoretically and practically. The core of the argument, for this “unbundling” approach, is that conflating free speech and press freedom makes it too easy for reasonable democratic regulations on press freedom to be portrayed, by their opponents, (...) as part of a programme of illiberal censorship. While we acknowledge the important grain of truth in that argument, we try to show how the alternative, “unbundling” approach can also be used to undermine or mischaracterise democratically justifiable opposition to media regulations in despotic regimes. In light of the problems on both sides, we defend a contextually-variable account of the relation between these two liberties. (shrink)

This book addresses the question: "What should be the appropriate limits to free speech?" The author claims that it is the state, rather than abstract principles, that must provide the answer. The book defends a version of Hobbesian absolutism and rejects the dominant liberal idea that there is a right (human or civil) setting the boundaries of free speech. This liberal view can be known as the "principled defence of free speech", in which (...) class='Hi'>speech is established as a constitutional principle that has priority over the state. The author instead offers an "unprincipled approach to free speech", suggesting that the boundaries of speech must necessarily be set by the state, which in liberal democracies means through social and political contestation. The final chapter applies the argument to the topic of hate speech and argues that it is appropriate to limit such speech when it causes harm and offense. The book will be of use to students and scholars across political theory, political science, sociology, philosophy and law. (shrink)

Free speech fallacies are errors of meta-argument. One commits a free speech fallacy when one argues that since there are apparent restrictions on one’s rights of free expression, procedural rules of critical exchange have been broken, and consequently, one’s preferred view is dialectically better off than it may otherwise seem. Free speech fallacies are meta-argumentative, since they occur at the level of assessing the dialectical situation in terms of norms of argument and in (...) terms of meta-evidential principles of interpreting how and why people follow (or fail to follow) argumentative rules. Our plan here is to begin with a brief explanation of meta-argument and meta-argumentative fallacy. We will then turn to the variety of forms of the free speech fallacy, which we will explain as meta-argumentatively erroneous. (shrink)

This chapter examines two ways in which liberal thinkers have appealed to claims about disagreement in order to defend a principle of free speech. One argument, from Mill, says that free speech is a necessary condition for healthy disagreement, and that healthy disagreement is conducive to human flourishing. The other argument says that in a community of people who disagree about questions of value, free speech is a necessary condition of legitimate democratic government. We (...) argue that both of these arguments, in their standard guises, are premised upon contestable views about the realpolitik of disagreement in a liberal society. (shrink)

We defend the view of some feminist writers that the notion of silencing has to be taken seriously in discussions of free speech. We assume that what ought to be meant by ‘speech’, in the context ‘free speech’, is whatever it is that a correct justification of the right to free speech justifies one in protecting. And we argue that what one ought to mean includes illocution, in the sense of J.L. Austin.

Democratic theories of free speech hold that the right to free speech is grounded in the nature of collective self-governance. The legitimacy of imposing laws on those who disagree with them depends on giving all citizens an equal right to participate in the lawmaking process, including the right to express their opposition. Ronald Dworkin argues that views of this kind are in tension with hate speech regulation. If we forbid the expression of prejudice, we undermine (...) the legitimacy of laws protecting minority groups. The aim in this chapter is to diffuse the tension Dworkin sees between a democratic justification of the right to free speech and hate speech regulation. This is done by developing an account of how our bodily rights constrain the right to free speech. (shrink)

People sometimes use speech to interfere with other people’s speech, as in the case of a heckler sabotaging a lecture with constant interjections. Some people claim that such interference infringes upon free speech. Against this view, we argue that where competing speakers in a public forum both have an interest in speaking, free speech principles should not automatically give priority to the ‘official’ speaker. Given the ideals underlying free speech, heckling speech (...) sometimes deserves priority. But what can we say, then, about situations in which heckling clearly seems to infringe upon people’s civil liberties, in a way that intuitively justifies intervention? In such cases, we argue, heckling infringes upon people’s associative freedom. We present and defend an ethical framework for the institutional management of ‘Speech Fights’, geared around this insight. (shrink)

It is widely held that free speech is a distinctive and privileged social kind. But what is free speech? In particular, is there any unified phenomenon that is both free speech and which is worthy of the special value traditionally attached to free speech? We argue that a descendent of the classic Millian justification of free speech is in fact a justification of a more general social condition; and, via an (...) argument that 'free speech' names whatever natural social kind is justified by the best arguments, that free speech is therefore this more general condition. This condition involves not merely the orthodox freedom (in some sense) of speakers to distribute words, but also two less frequently acknowledged dimensions of free speech: audience understanding and consideration. We conclude with some discussion of the policy implications of this conception of free speech. (shrink)

This article examines what is wrong with some expressive acts, ‘insults’. Their putative wrongfulness is distinguished from the causing of indirect harms, aggregated harms, contextual harms, and damaging misrepresentations. The article clarifies what insults are, making use of work by Neu and Austin, and argues that their wrongfulness cannot lie in the hurt that is caused to those at whom such acts are directed. Rather it must lie in what they seek to do, namely to denigrate the other. The causing (...) of offence is at most evidence that an insult has been communicated; it is not independent grounds of proscription or constraint. The victim of an insult may know that she has been insulted but not accept or agree with the insult, and thereby submit to the insulter. Hence insults need not, as Waldron argues they do, occasion dignitary harms. They do not of themselves subvert their victims' equal moral status. The claim that hateful speech endorses inequality should not be conflated with a claim that such speech directly subverts equality. Thus, ‘wounding words’ should not unduly trouble the liberal defender of free speech either on the grounds of preventing offence or on those of avoiding dignitary harms. (shrink)

One of the strongest defences of free speech holds that autonomy requires the protection of speech. In this paper I examine five conditions that autonomy must satisfy. I survey recent research in social psychology regarding automatic behaviour, and a challenge to autonomy is articulated. I argue that a plausible strategy for neutralising some of the autonomy-threatening automatic responses consists in avoiding the exposure to the environmental features that trigger them. If this is so, we can good autonomy-based (...) pro tanto reasons for controlling exposure to certain forms of speech. (shrink)

Free Speech is a philosophical treatment of a topic which is of immense importance to all of us. Writing with great clarity, wit, and genuine concern, Alan Haworth situates the main arguments for free speech by tracing their relationship to contemporary debates in politics and political philosophy, and their historical roots to earlier controversies over religious toleration. Free Speech will appeal to anyone with an interest in philosophy, politics and current affairs.

This collection of thirteen new essays is the first to examine, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, how the new technologies and global reach of the Internet are changing the theory and practice of free speech.

Recent arguments trying to justify further free speech restrictions by appealing to harms that are allegedly serious enough to warrant such restrictions regularly fail to provide sufficient empirical evidence and normative argument. This is also true for the attempt made by Bonotti and Seglow. They offer no valid argument for their claim that it is wrong to direct “religiously offensive speech” at “unjustly disadvantaged” minorities (thereby allegedly undermining their “self-respect”), nor for their further claim that this is (...) not the case when such speech is directed at “established majorities.” Moreover, their account has either counter-intuitive moral implications or succumbs to logical or pragmatic incoherence. Thus, they have not adduced convincing reasons to further restrict speech. In fact, some of the reasons for this failure provide, in turn, positive reasons in support of free speech. Two important (not new, but newly confirmed) reasons are that restricting free speech undermines both equal civic standing as well as fact-guided (as opposed to blindly ideological) policies. Free speech, in contrast, is indispensable for both. (shrink)

The paper gives a spirited defence of freedom of speech as the best means for attaining truth in a society and argues that the remedy for bad or false speech is not to curtail free speech but more free speech.

Free Speech and the Politics of Identity challenges the scholarly view as well as the dominant legal view outside the United States that the right of free speech may reasonably be traded off in pursuit of justice to stigmatized minorities. The book's innovative normative and interpretative methodology calls for a new departure in comparative public law, in which all states responsibly address their common problems, not only of inadequate protection of free speech, but also (...) correlative failure to take seriously the continuing political power of such evils as anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia. (shrink)

_Free Speech_ is a philosophical treatment of a topic which is of immense importance to all of us. Writing with great clarity, wit, and genuine concern, Alan Haworth situates the main arguments for free speech by tracing their relationship to contemporary debates in politics and political philosophy, and their historical roots to earlier controversies over religious toleration. _Free Speech_ will appeal to anyone with an interest in philosophy, politics and current affairs.

I have argued elsewhere that in past history, freedom of speech, whether granted to few or many, was granted as bestowing some important benefit. John Stuart Mill, for example, in On Liberty, saw it as enabling us to learn from each other through discussion. By the test of benefit, I here argue that social media that are funded through trade in our personal data with advertisers, including propagandists, cannot claim to be supporting free speech. We lose our (...) freedoms, if the personal data we entrust to online social media are used to target us with information, or disinformation, tailored as persuasive to different personalities, in order to maximize revenue from advertisers or propagandists. Among the serious consequences described, particularly dangerous because of its effect on democracy, is the use of such targeted advertisements to swing voting campaigns. Control is needed both of the social media and of any political parties that pay social media for differential targeting of voters based on personality. Using UK government documents, I recommend legislation for reform and enforcement. (shrink)

Recognition of the harms done by free speech is a function of the social ontology presupposed. An atomist ontology implies that the harms suffered are restricted to individual people. This paper suggests an alternate ontology—one that describes systems established by the causal reciprocities of their proper parts. It proposes a consequentialist moral theory, and considers the harms suffered by these systems when speech exposes their internal, otherwise private, behaviors or features, when speech is malicious and false, (...) and when speech is monopolistic. Does the proposed ontology have objectionable implications for public policy? Alternative answers are considered briefly. (shrink)

This book presents an accessible and carefully argued challenge to conventional approaches to thinking about free speech. Anthony Leaker provides a richer, more nuanced understanding of what free speech is and how it operates, explaining how free speech arguments are situated within a broader liberal humanist ideology.

How important is free speech? Should it be defended at any cost? Or should we set limits on what can and cannot be said? This Very Short Introduction offers a lively and thought-provoking guide to these questions, exploring both the traditional philosophical arguments as well as the practical issues and controversies facing society today.

While autonomy arguments provide a compelling foundation for free speech, they also support individual privacy rights. Considering how speech and privacy may be justified, I will argue that the speech necessary for self-government does not need to include details that would violate privacy rights. Additionally, I will argue that if viewed as a kind of intangible property right, informational privacy should limit speech and expression in a range of cases. In a world where we have (...) an overabundance of content to consume, much of which could be called “information pollution,” and where there are numerous platforms to broadcast one’s expressions, it is increasingly difficult to maintain that speech should trump privacy. (shrink)

Free speech has historically been viewed as a special and preferred democratic value in the United States, by the public as well as by the legislatures and courts. In 1937, Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote in Palko v. Connecticut that protection of speech is a “fundamental” liberty due to America's history, political and legal, and he recognized its importance, saying, “[F]reedom of thought and speech” is “the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” (...) It is likely notable that in the Bill of Rights free speech is protected in the First Amendment rather than later. (shrink)

Free Speech in the Balance is the first comprehensive study of proportional analysis in free speech theory. This book challenges the US Supreme Court's categorical approach and explains the importance of understanding the breadth of concerns arising from regulations directly and indirectly impacting expression. The author provides in-depth analysis of some of the important social and political principles governing topics of vital concern, including campaign financing, university speech codes, secondary school rules, incitement, and threats. This (...) book should be read by students and scholars of free speech theory and anyone interested in learning more about the history of existing law, the issues of current importance, and trends in expressive significance. (shrink)

This paper clarifies the legal right to free speech, identifies ways that speech can be harmful, and discusses pornography hate speech, and lies. It is also written for a non-technical audience.

ACAS reports increasing disciplinary action against employees over expression that employers dislike. Given the prominence of social media in contemporary life, this is a significant current legal issue yet one which has attracted relatively little academic comment. This article examines the compatibility of unfair dismissal doctrine in this context with traditional liberal principle. Arguably, doctrine provides only flimsy protection. Although the common law recognises the importance of individual autonomy generally when determining rights claims, this well-established liberal value appears to have (...) little influence on unfair dismissal doctrine. The dominant academic view on realising greater workplace human rights protection through greater application of the proportionality principle is unlikely to address this problem; reconceptualisation of the substantive free speech right at stake is required. This article offers a strategy on how this might be achieved--and so how differences between practice and principle might be reconciled--through a sympathetic reading of the Strasbourg and UK jurisprudence and potential policy-maker intervention. (shrink)

Both books reviewed here argue for the importance of free speech, though apart from that they have little in common. One, The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything by Eric Heinze is a cas...

​This book dives headfirst into the contemporary controversy over the limits of free speech. Changing conceptions of what constitutes legitimate harm coupled with the advent of the internet and social media have provided a challenging environment for defining the boundaries of acceptable speech in our contemporary society. This book argues that these problems emerge due to flaws in our free speech framework, leaving the argument for free speech vulnerable to becoming inverted into a (...) justification for censorship. In response, this book argues for a version of free speech based on a framework of toleration. Drawing on the work of the philosopher Rainer Forst, a new justification for free speech is formulated – reflexive freedom of speech – which aims to overcome past issues and justify free speech in a way that is universal, consistent and just. (shrink)

Contemporary civil libertarians claim that their works preserve a worthy American tradition of defending free-speech rights dating back to the framing of the First Amendment. _Transforming Free Speech_ challenges the worthiness, and indeed the very existence of one uninterrupted libertarian tradition. Mark A. Graber asserts that in the past, broader political visions inspired libertarian interpretations of the First Amendment. In reexamining the philosophical and jurisprudential foundations of the defense of expression rights from the Civil War to the (...) present, he exposes the monolithic free-speech tradition as a myth. Instead of one conception of the system of free expression, two emerge: the conservative libertarian tradition that dominated discourse from the Civil War until World War I, and the civil libertarian tradition that dominates later twentieth-century argument. The essence of the current perception of the American free-speech tradition derives from the writings of Zechariah Chafee, Jr., the progressive jurist most responsible for the modern interpretation of the First Amendment. His interpretation, however, deliberately obscured earlier libertarian arguments linking liberty of speech with liberty of property. Moreover, Chafee stunted the development of a more radical interpretation of expression rights that would give citizens the resources and independence necessary for the effective exercise of free speech. Instead, Chafee maintained that the right to political and social commentary could be protected independent of material inequalities that might restrict access to the marketplace of ideas. His influence enfeebled expression rights in a world where their exercise depends increasingly on economic power. Untangling the libertarian legacy, Graber points out the disjunction in the libertarian tradition to show that free-speech rights, having once been transformed, can be transformed again. Well-conceived and original in perspective, _Transforming Free Speech_ will interest political theorists, students of government, and anyone interested in the origins of the free-speech tradition in the United States. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 703, August 2012.

This article looks at liberalism as a political tradition encompassing competing and, at times, incommensurable values. It looks in particular at the potential conflict between the values of free speech and equal respect. Both of these are foundational values for liberalism, in the sense that they arise as normative ideals from the very inception of the liberal tradition itself. Yet from the perspective of this tradition, it is by no means clear which of these values should be prioritized (...) in those instances where they come into conflict. This article insists that the only way these two values can be meaningfully weighed against each other is if their competition can be understood within the broader framework of liberalism and democracy. Within this broader framework it is possible to find criteria which enable us to choose between these values in a non-circular manner — i.e. in ways which do not already presuppose a commitment to the value we wish to support. (shrink)

This article looks at liberalism as a political tradition encompassing competing and, at times, incommensurable values. It looks in particular at the potential conflict between the values of free speech and equal respect. Both of these are foundational values for liberalism, in the sense that they arise as normative ideals from the very inception of the liberal tradition itself. Yet from the perspective of this tradition, it is by no means clear which of these values should be prioritized (...) in those instances where they come into conflict. This article insists that the only way these two values can be meaningfully weighed against each other is if their competition can be understood within the broader framework of liberalism and democracy. Within this broader framework it is possible to find criteria which enable us to choose between these values in a non-circular manner — i.e. in ways which do not already presuppose a commitment to the value we wish to support. (shrink)

This essay offers a liberal, neo-Millian account of free speech, which attempts to fix some familiar bugs in Mill's account of free speech by focusing primarily on the right of free association, together with the permissibility of imposing restrictions to deal with, as Mill put it, ‘violations of good manners’ and ‘offences against decency’. It also uncovers a number of more conceptual puzzles with free speech. These can be resolved, it is contended, by (...) regarding free speech as a practice. (shrink)

In this article Glen Newey defends the view that freedom of expression, and specifically free speech, enjoys special status because it is a necessary condition of politics itself. The first political question concerns the terms on which people associate with one another. This requires free speech, because in order to associate, people need to think of themselves as entering into unconstrained agreements and this demands full access to information. He considers different ways in which free (...) speech has been understood and argues that underlying classical liberal defences is a concern to protect the content rather than occasions of speech. He then applies this understanding to toleration. He argues that free speech is prior to toleration, rather than a corollary of it and considers the implications of this view for some recent controversies concerning free speech. (shrink)

In 2012, baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, citing religious beliefs. Colorado Public Accommodations law prohibits business owners from denying the “full and equal enjoyment” of their services on the basis of sexual orientation, and Phillips refused to sell the couple the very same items he would sell to a heterosexual couple. But Phillips, who fashions himself as a “cake artist,” argues that applying the law here would interfere with his (...) free-speech rights. Moreover, he argues that he is not actually discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation but on the basis of a particular understanding of marriage; he is happy to sell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people a wide range of other items. In this chapter, I evaluate both arguments. In the postscript, I briefly explain the US Supreme Court's June 2018 ruling on the case. (shrink)

If the University had a constitution, would it contain a free speech provision such as exists in the U.S. Constitution? The author develops in some detail the idea of the University as a special social institution that has as its goal the dissemination and advancement of knowledge.Free Speech on Campus examines the arguments, pro and con, concerning appropriate standards of discourse and expression that are particularly germane to the campus context, public or private, whether or not (...) they are constitutionally enforceable. Students and teachers in every discipline will find this book engaging and illuminating; it is especially relevant for ethicists and philosophers of education. (shrink)

Contemporary civil libertarians claim that their works preserve a worthy American tradition of defending free-speech rights dating back to the framing of the First Amendment. _Transforming Free Speech_ challenges the worthiness, and indeed the very existence of one uninterrupted libertarian tradition. Mark A. Graber asserts that in the past, broader political visions inspired libertarian interpretations of the First Amendment. In reexamining the philosophical and jurisprudential foundations of the defense of expression rights from the Civil War to the (...) present, he exposes the monolithic free-speech tradition as a myth. Instead of one conception of the system of free expression, two emerge: the conservative libertarian tradition that dominated discourse from the Civil War until World War I, and the civil libertarian tradition that dominates later twentieth-century argument. The essence of the current perception of the American free-speech tradition derives from the writings of Zechariah Chafee, Jr., the progressive jurist most responsible for the modern interpretation of the First Amendment. His interpretation, however, deliberately obscured earlier libertarian arguments linking liberty of speech with liberty of property. Moreover, Chafee stunted the development of a more radical interpretation of expression rights that would give citizens the resources and independence necessary for the effective exercise of free speech. Instead, Chafee maintained that the right to political and social commentary could be protected independent of material inequalities that might restrict access to the marketplace of ideas. His influence enfeebled expression rights in a world where their exercise depends increasingly on economic power. Untangling the libertarian legacy, Graber points out the disjunction in the libertarian tradition to show that free-speech rights, having once been transformed, can be transformed again. Well-conceived and original in perspective, _Transforming Free Speech_ will interest political theorists, students of government, and anyone interested in the origins of the free-speech tradition in the United States. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Kant’s conception of free speech. Free speech is understood as the kind of speech that is constitutive of interaction respectful of everybody’s right to freedom, and it requires what we with John Rawls may call ‘public reason’. Public reason so understood refers to how the public authority must reason in order to properly specify the political relation between citizens. My main aim is to give us some reasons (...) for taking a renewed interest in Kant’s conception of free speech, including his account public reason. Kant’s position provides resources for dealing with many of the legal and political problems we currently struggle to analyze under this heading, such as the proper distinction between the sphere of justice and the sphere of ethics, hate speech, freedom of speech, defamation, and the public guarantee of reliable media and universal education. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether search engines and other new modes of online communication should be covered by free speech principles. It criticizes the analogical reason-ing that contemporary American courts and scholars have used to liken search engines to newspapers, and to extend free speech coverage to them based on that likeness. There are dissimilarities between search engines and newspapers that undermine the key analogy, and also rival analogies that can be drawn which don’t recommend free (...) speech protection for search engines. Partly on these bases, we argue that an analogical approach to questions of free speech coverage is of limited use in this context. Credible verdicts about how free speech principles should apply to new modes of online com-munication require us to re-excavate the normative foundations of free speech. This method for deciding free speech coverage suggests that only a subset of search engine outputs and similar online communication should receive special protection against government regulation. (shrink)