5 ms·

> Making room for the full range of thought and expression is not an end in itself. It is. And it ought to be. The version being espoused here is conditional

by pgayed 4y ago

> Making room for the full range of thought and expression is not an end in itself. It is. And it ought to be. The version being espoused here is conditional or contingent free expression. It doesn't mean much. In this form, expression is permitted only to the extent it is “enlarging understanding and uncovering truth.” Is this the (sole) purpose of expression?

librish 4y ago
There is almost no one who's actually for completely unchecked freedom of speech, so it's all a matter of deciding where along your sliding scale you draw the line. Would you suggest that things like murder threats or libel should be legal? Otherwise you're advocating for conditional or contingent free expression too.
- pgayed 4y ago
  That depends. Would suggesting they be legal be legal?
  - Niksko 4y ago
    > Would suggesting they be legal be legal? Have you encountered situations where ethicists and absolutist free speech advocates have encountered any legal problems for exploring concepts such as this? You can make slippery slope arguments if you like, but they're somewhat analogous to the very idea you're defending. You're allowed to make meta arguments about curtailing absolute free speech being dangerous, why would someone else not be able to make a meta argument about allowing death threats? They're both equally removed from reality.
    - pgayed 4y ago
      I have had discussions with individuals who maintain that entertaining (and giving airtime to) certain ideas itself constitutes harm.
      - _Algernon_ 4y ago
        That doesn't make it illegal? If they don't want to talk to you because you entertain those ideas, that's just them using the right to freedom of association. It doesn't make entertaining the ideas illegal.
        pgayed 4y ago
        No, but they would want it to be. I asked, “Are you advocating a system where giving airtime to certain ideas, but not including incitement, would be punishable?” They answered in the affirmative. The justification being that entertaining certain ideas itself constitutes harm (because entertaining ideas may be proximate to harm or “increases the likelihood of harm”). We also got into definitions of “harm”, which, in my view, were expansive. (In the sense that nearly anything could be rationalized as resulting in harm.)
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Libel is legal until a court declares that it isn't and I wouldn't want it to be legal for people to be charged with libel without a court proceeding. Death threats are considered to be an intent to act so there is probable harm and the person is usually charged criminally to prevent them from doing what they said they would. However, saying you hope someone dies is not a crime and as much as I think it incites some bad emotions is considered free speech. Hopefully we can live in a society where people just act like normal adults and the ones saying outlandish things are not given a lot of attention.
  - Taniwha 4y ago
    Charging is what happens BEFORE a court proceeding, it's done by a prosecutor, not a judge Also I'm pretty sure that when a court finds that something is libellous it's deemed to have always been libellous from the moment it was done (may depend on what country you're in)
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      While I generally agree, charge can have multiple meanings in a legal context. It just isn't limited to criminal charges. Usually when someone is found guilty of libel they are ordered to stop doing the action as well which means they can be held in contempt if they don't.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    And to be crystal clear here, at least in the US. threats of violence, up to and including death threats, are completely legal. What's not legal is threats of violence with both the intent and the means to follow through. If an 80 year old man walks up to and tells me they're going to kick the shit out of me, it's perfectly legal. Not only is it legal, no one is going to do anything about it until that man actually attacks me. If The Rock walks up to me and tells me he's going to kick the shit out of me, it's very clearly illegal (assuming we know intent, of course) and he will go to jail for it. This is why things like repeating can also be illegal. If you never have the intent or the means to follow through with a threat, but do it repeatedly to affect mental state, that too is illegal for a different reason. But the presumption that this speech is de facto not legal is absolutely incorrect, in the US at least. ---- Libel is not criminal in any way, shape, or form, and is a bad example as a result.
082349872349872 4y ago
Uh, yes? What is the point of having a conversation if one or more parties are not committed to "enlarging understanding and uncovering truth"?
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Could you provide an example of free expression, not committed to either "enlarging understanding" or "uncovering truth", that would be part of a useful conversation? (that's a general question; in the particular context of MIT I'd assume the bar would be a useful academic conversation)
  - pgayed 4y ago
    What topics are academic? Which are not? Which questions are fair game for academic inquiry? Which are not? How do we know ahead of time what will be useful and what won't be? Is the question above this line academically useful?
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      Having some free time, I'll take a rough draft cut at these: > What topics are academic? Which are not? Topics which discuss general ideas which are logically (or at least rhetorically) decidable are academic. Topics which discuss particular individuals and are matters of taste are not. > Which questions are fair game for academic inquiry? cf supra > Which are not? cf supra > How do we know ahead of time what will be useful and what won't be? If a topic falls under an existing academic discipline, it will likely be useful. As stated above, matters of taste are unlikely to be useful. (possibly, if one has reason to believe one can capture a global distribution of tastes? or provide a theory of changes in distributions of tastes, etc.) > Is the question above this line academically useful? Useful for a "philosophy of academics" discipline, probably not so useful for any non-meta discipline. Note, however, that discipline's core questions will change over time, as one subfield gets overworked and new subfields are discovered.
      - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by pgayed 4y ago

librish 4y ago

There is almost no one who's actually for completely unchecked freedom of speech, so it's all a matter of deciding where along your sliding scale you draw the line. Would you suggest that things like murder threats or libel should be legal? Otherwise you're advocating for conditional or contingent free expression too.

pgayed 4y ago
That depends. Would suggesting they be legal be legal?
- Niksko 4y ago
  > Would suggesting they be legal be legal? Have you encountered situations where ethicists and absolutist free speech advocates have encountered any legal problems for exploring concepts such as this? You can make slippery slope arguments if you like, but they're somewhat analogous to the very idea you're defending. You're allowed to make meta arguments about curtailing absolute free speech being dangerous, why would someone else not be able to make a meta argument about allowing death threats? They're both equally removed from reality.
  - pgayed 4y ago
    I have had discussions with individuals who maintain that entertaining (and giving airtime to) certain ideas itself constitutes harm.
    - _Algernon_ 4y ago
      That doesn't make it illegal? If they don't want to talk to you because you entertain those ideas, that's just them using the right to freedom of association. It doesn't make entertaining the ideas illegal.
      - pgayed 4y ago
        No, but they would want it to be. I asked, “Are you advocating a system where giving airtime to certain ideas, but not including incitement, would be punishable?” They answered in the affirmative. The justification being that entertaining certain ideas itself constitutes harm (because entertaining ideas may be proximate to harm or “increases the likelihood of harm”). We also got into definitions of “harm”, which, in my view, were expansive. (In the sense that nearly anything could be rationalized as resulting in harm.)
encryptluks2 4y ago
Libel is legal until a court declares that it isn't and I wouldn't want it to be legal for people to be charged with libel without a court proceeding. Death threats are considered to be an intent to act so there is probable harm and the person is usually charged criminally to prevent them from doing what they said they would. However, saying you hope someone dies is not a crime and as much as I think it incites some bad emotions is considered free speech. Hopefully we can live in a society where people just act like normal adults and the ones saying outlandish things are not given a lot of attention.
- Taniwha 4y ago
  Charging is what happens BEFORE a court proceeding, it's done by a prosecutor, not a judge Also I'm pretty sure that when a court finds that something is libellous it's deemed to have always been libellous from the moment it was done (may depend on what country you're in)
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    While I generally agree, charge can have multiple meanings in a legal context. It just isn't limited to criminal charges. Usually when someone is found guilty of libel they are ordered to stop doing the action as well which means they can be held in contempt if they don't.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  And to be crystal clear here, at least in the US. threats of violence, up to and including death threats, are completely legal. What's not legal is threats of violence with both the intent and the means to follow through. If an 80 year old man walks up to and tells me they're going to kick the shit out of me, it's perfectly legal. Not only is it legal, no one is going to do anything about it until that man actually attacks me. If The Rock walks up to me and tells me he's going to kick the shit out of me, it's very clearly illegal (assuming we know intent, of course) and he will go to jail for it. This is why things like repeating can also be illegal. If you never have the intent or the means to follow through with a threat, but do it repeatedly to affect mental state, that too is illegal for a different reason. But the presumption that this speech is de facto not legal is absolutely incorrect, in the US at least. ---- Libel is not criminal in any way, shape, or form, and is a bad example as a result.

082349872349872 4y ago

Uh, yes? What is the point of having a conversation if one or more parties are not committed to "enlarging understanding and uncovering truth"?

082349872349872 4y ago
Could you provide an example of free expression, not committed to either "enlarging understanding" or "uncovering truth", that would be part of a useful conversation? (that's a general question; in the particular context of MIT I'd assume the bar would be a useful academic conversation)
- pgayed 4y ago
  What topics are academic? Which are not? Which questions are fair game for academic inquiry? Which are not? How do we know ahead of time what will be useful and what won't be? Is the question above this line academically useful?
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    Having some free time, I'll take a rough draft cut at these: > What topics are academic? Which are not? Topics which discuss general ideas which are logically (or at least rhetorically) decidable are academic. Topics which discuss particular individuals and are matters of taste are not. > Which questions are fair game for academic inquiry? cf supra > Which are not? cf supra > How do we know ahead of time what will be useful and what won't be? If a topic falls under an existing academic discipline, it will likely be useful. As stated above, matters of taste are unlikely to be useful. (possibly, if one has reason to believe one can capture a global distribution of tastes? or provide a theory of changes in distributions of tastes, etc.) > Is the question above this line academically useful? Useful for a "philosophy of academics" discipline, probably not so useful for any non-meta discipline. Note, however, that discipline's core questions will change over time, as one subfield gets overworked and new subfields are discovered.
    - 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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