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John Milton in Areopagitica[1]: > Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that th

by chroma 6y ago

John Milton in Areopagitica[1]: > Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. Thomas Paine's introduction to The Age of Reason[2]: > You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. Chapter 2 of Mill's On Liberty[3]: > But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. None of these argue from the rights of the speaker or writer. They're focused on the ideas and the reader. They point out that even bad ideas have good uses. These are the arguments that moved us away from a censorious society. 1. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/text.html https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/... 2. https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/intro.htm https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/intro.htm 3. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2

danso 6y ago
Thanks for the reply and the specifics. I don't know much about free speech as it was conceptualized in the U.S. Constitution, so I'm cribbing from the Wikipedia page [0]. With respect to Milton and Mill, the Wikipedia entry actually cites each in arguing for free speech and for limits to rights, respectively: - "[Milton] Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties" (Areopagitica) - "[Wikipedia] Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute...Justifications for such include the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.'" I'm happy to defer to your knowledge of Milton and Mill if you think Wikipedia misquotes/decontextualizes the latter. That said, the reason why I prefer the U.S. Constitution as a starting point isn't just because of YouTube's location or because – as an American – that it's my default frame of reference. I prefer the First Amendment because unlike writings from Mill and Milton, it has actually been implemented as law in a successful government and society. You can dismiss the Constitution as a flawed document written by a bunch of connected white guys, but the fact is that – through original intent and living interpretation by the Supreme Court – it has weathered a far, far greater scope of human communication and freedom than Milton or Mill could ever imagine. Putting aside personal preference, what's the justification for giving pre-Constitution philosophers greater or equal weight to the Constitution? Because they thought about things decades/centuries earlier? How were their thoughts proven in implementation, not just in their own time, but in all the epochs of societal and technological change since then? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
- cousin_it 6y ago
  I think there are philosophical arguments for free speech that can be evaluated on their own merits: 1) If some idea is true, I'd like to be able to learn that it's true. 2) If a system silences a dissenter, then other dissenters (who could have better arguments) will know that there's no principled protection for them, and won't speak. 3) If some idea has been silenced, then most people don't know the best arguments for it, so they can't in good conscience support the silencing. 4) Clearly false ideas don't need silencing. Historically, an alarming proportion of silenced ideas have been true, but dangerous to the prevailing power of the day.
  - cousin_it 6y ago
    Just to remember this later: 5) Stopping a political idea from being heard by people is removing political agency from these people, which is undemocratic.

by chroma 6y ago

danso 6y ago

Thanks for the reply and the specifics. I don't know much about free speech as it was conceptualized in the U.S. Constitution, so I'm cribbing from the Wikipedia page [0]. With respect to Milton and Mill, the Wikipedia entry actually cites each in arguing for free speech and for limits to rights, respectively: - "[Milton] Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties" (Areopagitica) - "[Wikipedia] Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute...Justifications for such include the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.'" I'm happy to defer to your knowledge of Milton and Mill if you think Wikipedia misquotes/decontextualizes the latter. That said, the reason why I prefer the U.S. Constitution as a starting point isn't just because of YouTube's location or because – as an American – that it's my default frame of reference. I prefer the First Amendment because unlike writings from Mill and Milton, it has actually been implemented as law in a successful government and society. You can dismiss the Constitution as a flawed document written by a bunch of connected white guys, but the fact is that – through original intent and living interpretation by the Supreme Court – it has weathered a far, far greater scope of human communication and freedom than Milton or Mill could ever imagine. Putting aside personal preference, what's the justification for giving pre-Constitution philosophers greater or equal weight to the Constitution? Because they thought about things decades/centuries earlier? How were their thoughts proven in implementation, not just in their own time, but in all the epochs of societal and technological change since then? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

cousin_it 6y ago
I think there are philosophical arguments for free speech that can be evaluated on their own merits: 1) If some idea is true, I'd like to be able to learn that it's true. 2) If a system silences a dissenter, then other dissenters (who could have better arguments) will know that there's no principled protection for them, and won't speak. 3) If some idea has been silenced, then most people don't know the best arguments for it, so they can't in good conscience support the silencing. 4) Clearly false ideas don't need silencing. Historically, an alarming proportion of silenced ideas have been true, but dangerous to the prevailing power of the day.
- cousin_it 6y ago
  Just to remember this later: 5) Stopping a political idea from being heard by people is removing political agency from these people, which is undemocratic.