On Freedom of Expression

I think it is worth reminding ourselves why freedom of expression matters.  There were times when any of the following suggestions might have provoked stunned outrage: that Jews be allowed to own land or hold political office; that women be allowed to vote; that African Americans be granted full citizenship.  The free expression of dissenting views was of the utmost importance in those days.  It remains so today, even if the particular suggestions just noted are no longer taken seriously.  Unfortunately, there are debates in academic philosophy today that are conducting themselves without proper regard for the importance of allowing dissenting views to see the light of day.

I was thinking about this recently upon learning that the very excellent interviewer, Richard Marshall, resigned from 3AM Magazine after the decision was made to remove an interview he conducted from the magazine (see here or here).  I don't fault the magazine for this, as it was under immense pressure and acted reluctantly.  That, however, is what makes this situation so worrisome.  Reasoned dissent is not a threat to moral progress, but essential to it.

Noam Chomsky is right: either you believe in freedom of speech for those you disagree with or you don't believe in it at all; even Goebbels believed in freedom of speech for those he agreed with.  We need to remember this.  Everybody, on every side of a serious dispute, believes that he or she is on the side of the good and the true.  The value of freedom of expression comes from the knowledge that anybody can be wrong, and we won't know who is if we do not allow all considered views into the arena of debate.  Without such freedom, we have no check against persistent ignorance.  This is why such freedom is a foundational value of any civilized society, and its dismissal cannot be tolerated on the basis of offence.  Just because one is offended, it does not follow that one is right.  Those who found the very idea of a woman voting shocking did not gain any epistemic standing from the strength of their outrage.  The same holds today for anybody, even those on the right side of a dispute: one's outrage carries no probative value, except, perhaps, in demonstrating something about one's personality.

I think that the value of free inquiry goes even further than this, however, to the individual level.  Without the freedom to personally consider all viewpoints, no individual can fully self-develop.  The ability to openly explore all possibilities in creating a life path is central to the formation of the self.  Freedom of speech and thought lies, therefore, at the basis of human flourishing.

Of course there are risks associated with erring on the side of freedom of expression, but the best defence against bad views is counter-argument, not censorship, dogmatic resistance, or loud sloganeering.  If we stand by while the views we disagree with are silenced, it is only a matter of time before the views we agree with are silenced.

It is deeply worrisome to me that philosophy - of all disciplines! - should be losing sight of this in even the slightest of ways.  We are not doing justice to our worthy inheritance.  I fear that many philosophers today would be on the side of the Athenian government supporting Socrates' conviction rather than standing up for his right to offend.