6 ms·

“And if we agree with John Stuart Mill (1978) that speech should be protected because it leads to the truth, there seems no reason to protect the speech of anti

by kebman 6y ago

“And if we agree with John Stuart Mill (1978) that speech should be protected because it leads to the truth, there seems no reason to protect the speech of anti-vaccers or creationists.” This sentence assumes that the state, however it is made up, or perhaps the scientific elite or even clergy, is the final arbiter of truth. If we bring ourselves back a few hundred years, the latter part of the sentence could instead have been written like this: “there seems no reason to protect the speech of round-earthers and atheists.” I think this illustrates quite well the difficulty of regulating speech, at least from the standpoint that it should protect “truth,” because immediately the qestion of “who's truth?” arises.

jonathanstrange 6y ago
> is the final arbiter of truth That's a strawman argument. Judges are are not final arbiters of truth either, yet they can take away certain constitutional protections from people. It is perfectly possible to have non-final and fallible arbiters of truth - or something more modest like the interpretation of laws - to decide on such matters, as long as there is enough democratic division of power, due process, and appeals mechanisms.
- kebman 6y ago
  This matters very little to the one being censored. For them, that is indeed the “final stop,” as it were. As it stands the warnings and fact-checkers on places like Facebook serve only as annoynances to most people, and proof to them that the system is both authoritarian and wrong. This is also why so many want to fact check the fact checkers, and so on... In the end, it has just given a cause for a lot of people to unite against.
claudiawerner 6y ago
>This sentence assumes that the state, however it is made up, or perhaps the scientific elite or even clergy, is the final arbiter of truth. Not really; it could easily be the case that when such an issue comes to trial, you can present your evidence and arguments. The issue you point out only arises in the case where undue priority is given to the scientific elite or clergy. But I think the sentence isn't implying what you think it is. It's only highlighting that the goal of seeking truth isn't sufficient to justify the principle of free speech. This is for two reasons: it's not clear that all speech does lead to truth (even in the long run), and it's not clear that all truths should be revealed. The sentence only argues against people who justify free speech on the basis of truth. It does not propose that lies or discussion to find truth should be prohibited. "Free speech is good because it leads to truth/revealing the truth is a good in all contexts" does not stand up as an argument - at least according to this refutation of Mill.
- kebman 6y ago
  "it could easily be the case that when such an issue comes to trial, you can present your evidence and arguments." Trial? Do you mean like in a court of law? The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the state from hauling you to court just for making some utterance. Moreover, you shouldn't be asked to defend your views at the mercy of judges who threaten you with a loss of your freedom if you are deemed to have the "wrong" ideas. That doesn't only threaten your own freedom, but democracy itself. Priority, undue or not, does not matter, and it assumes that someone is the arbiter of that priority, whereas the idea of free speech claims that the final arbiter is truth itself, as it will conquer all if we just give people the freedom to find it. The maxim that comes out of this, is that the only way we can possibly find the truth, is by allowing ideas to compete freely, by giving people as much freedom of speech as possible, because if we don't, then lies will prevail.
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    >The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the state from hauling you to court just for making some utterance And the whole point of the legislature and judiciary is to prevent passage of laws which would allow the executive branch to haul you to court for just "some utterance" - but speech is not in itself always just "an utterance". >That doesn't only threaten your own freedom, but democracy itself. Arguably, democracy is undermined through some uses of free speech which in the U.S. in particular cannot be legislated. the OP article has a whole section on this as it relates to porn or hate speech, and the arguments made therein. >is that the only way we can possibly find the truth, is by allowing ideas to compete freely This may be true of "ideas" as abstract entities, but ideas take concrete form in particular acts of speech and modes of expression - the real picture isn't a heavenly battle of ideas, it's the real effects of speech - only some of which carry an idea. Child porn or threats both carry 'ideas', or they can be imbued with the intention to carry an idea. This does not mean they should not be censored. >as much freedom of speech as possible, because if we don't, then lies will prevail. Is there empirical evidence confirming this in the context of the modern populace in the information age?
technothrasher 6y ago
Yes, it is a misunderstanding of Mill. He wasn't arguing that all things spoken freely are true and therefor valuable. He was arguing that censoring speech will stop the propagation of both true and false ideas, and that better to allow the ideas to fight it out in the open than to squash any hope of discovering many truths.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  >and that better to allow the ideas to fight it out in the open than to squash any hope of discovering many truths. This assumes two things: firstly, that truth is itself an ultimate goal, and this pursuit overrides all other conflicts of rights; secondly, that ideas really do "fight it out in the open" and the long-run result of this process is desirable. It says nothing of what happens along the way (the "means"), it only cares about the ends. Why is there a dichotomy between "[any and all ideas] fighting in the open" and "squashing hope of discovering many truths"? I also see no reason why this argument on the basis of truth would not justify restrictions on things which do not even foster dialogue on truth. The truth-value of 'hate speech' (if there is any truth value) is likely negligible compared to the same ideas expressed otherwise.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  The same algorithm that would ban anti-vaxers today would also have banned Ignaz Semmelweis two centuries ago. (On a more sensitive topic, the same algorithm that would ban "covid is just a flu" today would have also banned "face masks protect against covid" a year ago.) It's not the opinions of anti-vaxers that are valuable, but potential other opinions which may look similar to the censor.
meheleventyone 6y ago
I suppose you have two kinds of truth when using that word: * That which can be rationally defended with evidence. The whole definition of a fact being a justified, true belief etc. * That which is believed to be true on faith. Regulating on the former with the proviso that encountering new evidence should inform our understanding of the truth seems prudent. For example the "scientific method". So for example not only can we show that anti-vax beliefs are wrong we can also show that disseminating them is actively harmful. So there is certainly a case to be made that regulating the propagation of these harmful beliefs under an evidence based regime is the prudent thing to do. Regulating on the latter is a terrible idea and that's what you'd get if anti-vax believers were trying to prevent evidence of the efficacy of vaccination from spreading.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  This is easy in examples such as anti-vax, flat-earth etc, but harder is more nuanced situations. That's because he who counts the votes, controls the election; and He who decides what counts as evidence (or its weight) controls the empirical truth. all scientific conclusions are at least some degree theory-laden. Then we get to the fact that scientific truth is not a priori for individuals, it must be communicated from a specific community which, if not at least self-motivated itself (as are most human groups) will be filtered through various political layers; The more privileged that community is (wrt exclusively wielding the power of truth), the more 3rd parties will interfere to acquire it. This is why political principles exist as well as impossibly ideal empirical ones; The issue is less about the complex issue of objective truth, and more about the autonomy of individuals to choose their own actions, whatever beliefs may motivate it.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    Right and regulation based on evidence would be a political principle and further we have to regulate nuanced situations all the time. Hence an entire branch of government usually set up to deal with the nuance of it.
    - 6y ago
cheph 6y ago
Furthermore, on some of the most important aspects of our lives, which is how we ought to live (i.e. matters pertaining to values and not facts), we do not have any way to determine the "truth", objectively. In my view "truth" is not even a well defined concept for anything not pertaining to fact. And politics, by it's very nature, is not restricted to the realm of facts. If it was it would be science and not politics. Politics is about applying values to facts. EDIT: This concept is fairly well explained by Karl Popper in his book, The Open Society and Its enemies. In Chapter 5, Nature and Convention [1] which is worth a read if this is hard to grasp. quoted> It is important for the understanding of this attitude to realize that these decisions can never be derived from facts (or from statements of facts), although they pertain to facts. The decision, for instance, to oppose slavery does not depend upon the fact that all men are born free and equal, and that no man is born in chains. For even if all were born free, some men might perhaps try to put others in chains, and they may even believe that they ought to put them in chains. And conversely, even if men were born in chains, many of us might demand the removal of these chains. Or to put this matter more precisely, if we consider a fact as alterable—such as the fact that many people are suffering from diseases—then we can always adopt a number of different attitudes towards this fact: more especially, we can decide to make an attempt to alter it; or we can decide to resist any such attempt; or we can decide not to take action at all. All moral decisions pertain in this way to some fact or other, especially to some fact of social life, and all (alterable) facts of social life can give rise to many different decisions. Which shows that the decisions can never be derivable from these facts, or from a description of these facts. [1]: https://pastebin.com/xHDkUypF https://pastebin.com/xHDkUypF
nabla9 6y ago
>“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance” (1978, 53). ... >But those who exhibit cruelty, malice, envy, insincerity, resentment and crass egoism are open to the greater sanction of disapprobation as a form of punishment, because these faults are wicked and other-regarding. Many things spoken today have nothing to do with truth. They are just expression of hate and anger and make insincere argument. Even worse, they want to wear out others in discussion.
- cheph 6y ago
  There is more to life than facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction >“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance” (1978, 53). This sentence as it stands has no limiting principle and is pretty much the justification that was given for almost every genocide. Heck this is the exact reasoning that China is using for the ongoing Uyghur genocide [1][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide [2]: https://neveragainrightnow.com/ https://neveragainrightnow.com/
  - nabla9 6y ago
    The context is not government censorship. It's people censoring each other.
    - cheph 6y ago
      > The context is not government censorship. It's people censoring each other. Actually if you read the source, it clearly is about government control (i.e. control by the active interference of mankind): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:On_Liberty_(4th_Edition).djvu/101 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:On_Liberty_(4th_Edition)... The sentence preceding the one you quoted is: > Acts, of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The problem is that "nuisance" here is not considered to include speech. The whole section this is in is about how "human beings should be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;" And if you read further you will recognize this is not predicated on the speech being true.

by kebman 6y ago

jonathanstrange 6y ago

> is the final arbiter of truth That's a strawman argument. Judges are are not final arbiters of truth either, yet they can take away certain constitutional protections from people. It is perfectly possible to have non-final and fallible arbiters of truth - or something more modest like the interpretation of laws - to decide on such matters, as long as there is enough democratic division of power, due process, and appeals mechanisms.

kebman 6y ago
This matters very little to the one being censored. For them, that is indeed the “final stop,” as it were. As it stands the warnings and fact-checkers on places like Facebook serve only as annoynances to most people, and proof to them that the system is both authoritarian and wrong. This is also why so many want to fact check the fact checkers, and so on... In the end, it has just given a cause for a lot of people to unite against.

claudiawerner 6y ago

>This sentence assumes that the state, however it is made up, or perhaps the scientific elite or even clergy, is the final arbiter of truth. Not really; it could easily be the case that when such an issue comes to trial, you can present your evidence and arguments. The issue you point out only arises in the case where undue priority is given to the scientific elite or clergy. But I think the sentence isn't implying what you think it is. It's only highlighting that the goal of seeking truth isn't sufficient to justify the principle of free speech. This is for two reasons: it's not clear that all speech does lead to truth (even in the long run), and it's not clear that all truths should be revealed. The sentence only argues against people who justify free speech on the basis of truth. It does not propose that lies or discussion to find truth should be prohibited. "Free speech is good because it leads to truth/revealing the truth is a good in all contexts" does not stand up as an argument - at least according to this refutation of Mill.

kebman 6y ago
"it could easily be the case that when such an issue comes to trial, you can present your evidence and arguments." Trial? Do you mean like in a court of law? The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the state from hauling you to court just for making some utterance. Moreover, you shouldn't be asked to defend your views at the mercy of judges who threaten you with a loss of your freedom if you are deemed to have the "wrong" ideas. That doesn't only threaten your own freedom, but democracy itself. Priority, undue or not, does not matter, and it assumes that someone is the arbiter of that priority, whereas the idea of free speech claims that the final arbiter is truth itself, as it will conquer all if we just give people the freedom to find it. The maxim that comes out of this, is that the only way we can possibly find the truth, is by allowing ideas to compete freely, by giving people as much freedom of speech as possible, because if we don't, then lies will prevail.
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  >The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the state from hauling you to court just for making some utterance And the whole point of the legislature and judiciary is to prevent passage of laws which would allow the executive branch to haul you to court for just "some utterance" - but speech is not in itself always just "an utterance". >That doesn't only threaten your own freedom, but democracy itself. Arguably, democracy is undermined through some uses of free speech which in the U.S. in particular cannot be legislated. the OP article has a whole section on this as it relates to porn or hate speech, and the arguments made therein. >is that the only way we can possibly find the truth, is by allowing ideas to compete freely This may be true of "ideas" as abstract entities, but ideas take concrete form in particular acts of speech and modes of expression - the real picture isn't a heavenly battle of ideas, it's the real effects of speech - only some of which carry an idea. Child porn or threats both carry 'ideas', or they can be imbued with the intention to carry an idea. This does not mean they should not be censored. >as much freedom of speech as possible, because if we don't, then lies will prevail. Is there empirical evidence confirming this in the context of the modern populace in the information age?

technothrasher 6y ago

Yes, it is a misunderstanding of Mill. He wasn't arguing that all things spoken freely are true and therefor valuable. He was arguing that censoring speech will stop the propagation of both true and false ideas, and that better to allow the ideas to fight it out in the open than to squash any hope of discovering many truths.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
claudiawerner 6y ago
>and that better to allow the ideas to fight it out in the open than to squash any hope of discovering many truths. This assumes two things: firstly, that truth is itself an ultimate goal, and this pursuit overrides all other conflicts of rights; secondly, that ideas really do "fight it out in the open" and the long-run result of this process is desirable. It says nothing of what happens along the way (the "means"), it only cares about the ends. Why is there a dichotomy between "[any and all ideas] fighting in the open" and "squashing hope of discovering many truths"? I also see no reason why this argument on the basis of truth would not justify restrictions on things which do not even foster dialogue on truth. The truth-value of 'hate speech' (if there is any truth value) is likely negligible compared to the same ideas expressed otherwise.
Viliam1234 6y ago
The same algorithm that would ban anti-vaxers today would also have banned Ignaz Semmelweis two centuries ago. (On a more sensitive topic, the same algorithm that would ban "covid is just a flu" today would have also banned "face masks protect against covid" a year ago.) It's not the opinions of anti-vaxers that are valuable, but potential other opinions which may look similar to the censor.

meheleventyone 6y ago

I suppose you have two kinds of truth when using that word: * That which can be rationally defended with evidence. The whole definition of a fact being a justified, true belief etc. * That which is believed to be true on faith. Regulating on the former with the proviso that encountering new evidence should inform our understanding of the truth seems prudent. For example the "scientific method". So for example not only can we show that anti-vax beliefs are wrong we can also show that disseminating them is actively harmful. So there is certainly a case to be made that regulating the propagation of these harmful beliefs under an evidence based regime is the prudent thing to do. Regulating on the latter is a terrible idea and that's what you'd get if anti-vax believers were trying to prevent evidence of the efficacy of vaccination from spreading.

Chris2048 6y ago
This is easy in examples such as anti-vax, flat-earth etc, but harder is more nuanced situations. That's because he who counts the votes, controls the election; and He who decides what counts as evidence (or its weight) controls the empirical truth. all scientific conclusions are at least some degree theory-laden. Then we get to the fact that scientific truth is not a priori for individuals, it must be communicated from a specific community which, if not at least self-motivated itself (as are most human groups) will be filtered through various political layers; The more privileged that community is (wrt exclusively wielding the power of truth), the more 3rd parties will interfere to acquire it. This is why political principles exist as well as impossibly ideal empirical ones; The issue is less about the complex issue of objective truth, and more about the autonomy of individuals to choose their own actions, whatever beliefs may motivate it.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  Right and regulation based on evidence would be a political principle and further we have to regulate nuanced situations all the time. Hence an entire branch of government usually set up to deal with the nuance of it.
  - 6y ago

cheph 6y ago

Furthermore, on some of the most important aspects of our lives, which is how we ought to live (i.e. matters pertaining to values and not facts), we do not have any way to determine the "truth", objectively. In my view "truth" is not even a well defined concept for anything not pertaining to fact. And politics, by it's very nature, is not restricted to the realm of facts. If it was it would be science and not politics. Politics is about applying values to facts. EDIT: This concept is fairly well explained by Karl Popper in his book, The Open Society and Its enemies. In Chapter 5, Nature and Convention [1] which is worth a read if this is hard to grasp. quoted> It is important for the understanding of this attitude to realize that these decisions can never be derived from facts (or from statements of facts), although they pertain to facts. The decision, for instance, to oppose slavery does not depend upon the fact that all men are born free and equal, and that no man is born in chains. For even if all were born free, some men might perhaps try to put others in chains, and they may even believe that they ought to put them in chains. And conversely, even if men were born in chains, many of us might demand the removal of these chains. Or to put this matter more precisely, if we consider a fact as alterable—such as the fact that many people are suffering from diseases—then we can always adopt a number of different attitudes towards this fact: more especially, we can decide to make an attempt to alter it; or we can decide to resist any such attempt; or we can decide not to take action at all. All moral decisions pertain in this way to some fact or other, especially to some fact of social life, and all (alterable) facts of social life can give rise to many different decisions. Which shows that the decisions can never be derivable from these facts, or from a description of these facts. [1]: https://pastebin.com/xHDkUypF https://pastebin.com/xHDkUypF

nabla9 6y ago

>“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance” (1978, 53). ... >But those who exhibit cruelty, malice, envy, insincerity, resentment and crass egoism are open to the greater sanction of disapprobation as a form of punishment, because these faults are wicked and other-regarding. Many things spoken today have nothing to do with truth. They are just expression of hate and anger and make insincere argument. Even worse, they want to wear out others in discussion.

cheph 6y ago
There is more to life than facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction >“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance” (1978, 53). This sentence as it stands has no limiting principle and is pretty much the justification that was given for almost every genocide. Heck this is the exact reasoning that China is using for the ongoing Uyghur genocide [1][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide [2]: https://neveragainrightnow.com/ https://neveragainrightnow.com/
- nabla9 6y ago
  The context is not government censorship. It's people censoring each other.
  - cheph 6y ago
    > The context is not government censorship. It's people censoring each other. Actually if you read the source, it clearly is about government control (i.e. control by the active interference of mankind): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:On_Liberty_(4th_Edition).djvu/101 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:On_Liberty_(4th_Edition)... The sentence preceding the one you quoted is: > Acts, of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The problem is that "nuisance" here is not considered to include speech. The whole section this is in is about how "human beings should be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;" And if you read further you will recognize this is not predicated on the speech being true.