| 1766 | Diogenes said that the most excellent thing among men was freedom of speech [Diogenes of Sin., by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Diogenes said that the most excellent thing among men was freedom of speech. | |
| From: report of Diogenes (Sin) (reports [c.360 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.Di.6 |
| 20481 | Nothing we say can be worse than unsaying it in the face of authority [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: Nothing which a gentleman says can seem worse than the shame of his unsaying it under duress from authority. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (III.10 On Restraining your Will [1580], p.1153) | |
| A reaction: The point is that you have to fight every day for free speech, because no matter what the law says, there are always people in power who want to shut you up. |
| 19942 | Treason may be committed as much by words as by deeds [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: We cannot altogether deny that treason may be committed as much by words as by deeds. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 20.05) | |
| A reaction: For example, betraying a major state secret. This is an important idea, for anyone who simplistically demands utter freedom of speech. There is also subversive speech, which is very hard to assess. Incitements can be crimes in Britain. |
| 20009 | Freedom of speech and writing, within the law, is essential to preserve liberty [Montesquieu] |
| Full Idea: If a state is to enjoy and preserve liberty, everyone must be able to say what he thinks. In a free state, therefore, a citizen may speak and write anything not expressly forbidden by the laws. | |
| From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], 19.27) | |
| A reaction: A commonplace now, but fairly bold then. I blame Freeborn John Lilburne for wild ideas like these. |
| 2233 | No government has ever suffered by being too tolerant of philosophy [Hume] |
| Full Idea: A state ought to tolerate every principle of philosophy, nor is there any instance that a government has suffered in its political interests by such indulgence. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XI.114) |
| 21058 | Enlightenment requires the free use of reason in the public realm [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted (…in a particular civil post or office). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Answer to 'What is Enlightenment?' [1784], p.55) | |
| A reaction: The private aspect seems to be the common restriction on speech by employees of the state. Does free speech have only instrumental value? Is the life of virtue possible without it? |
| 19859 | Free speech is very precious, and everyone may speak and write freely (but take responsibility for it) [Mirabeau/committee] |
| Full Idea: The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of man's most precious rights. Every citizen may therefore speak, write, and publish freely; except that he shall be responsible for the abuse of that freedom in cases determined by law. | |
| From: Mirabeau and committee (Declaration of the Rights of Man [1789], 11) | |
| A reaction: Wonderful, and very nicely expressed. Tom Paine will have been a huge influence on this clause. |
| 21487 | The freedom of the press to sell poison outweighs its usefulness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Freedom of the press must be regarded as a permit to sell poison. …I very much fear, therefore, that the dangers of press freedom outweigh its usefulness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:127) | |
| A reaction: On the whole the modern world disagrees with this view, but watching the popular press in Britain in the last twenty years has made me sympathise with Schopenhauer. |
| 7213 | Liberty arises at the point where people can freely and equally discuss things [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: There is a Victorian (and Enlightenment) optimism here which a glimpse of the freedoms of the early twenty-first century might dampen. I doubt if Mill expected British tabloid newspapers, or porn on cable TV. Education and freedom connect. |
| 22681 | The liberty of the press is more valuable for what it prevents than what it promotes [Tocqueville] |
| Full Idea: I approve of the liberty of the press from a consideration more of the evils it prevents than of the advantages it ensures. | |
| From: Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America (abr Renshaw) [1840], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: He accepts the freedom of the press as inevitable in a democracy, but he found U.S. newspapers to be nearly as bad then as they are now. |
| 23819 | Deliberate public lying should be punished [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every avoidable material falsehood publicly asserted should become a punishable offence. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.228) | |
| A reaction: Yes please! The early 21st century has become the time when truth lost all value in public life. Lying to the House of Commons in the UK required instant resignation 50 years ago. Now it is just a source of laughter. No freedom to lie! |
| 22267 | In the liberal view an insult to my group doesn't hurt me, since I'm defined by choices not groups [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: By the liberal conception of a person, my dignity could never be damaged by an insult to a group with which I identify, because what matters is not my social role, but my capacity to choose that role. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Free speech') | |
| A reaction: If I'm defined by my capacity to choose, and I choose to join some group, why is an insult to that group not an insult to my capacity to choose? How do you insult a liberal? 'I despise your individual freedom!'. |
| 22268 | If persons define themselves by a group membership, insults to that group are a real harm [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For persons who understand themselves as defined by the ethnic or religious group to which they belong, an insult to the group can inflict a harm as real and as damaging as some physical harms. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Free speech') | |
| A reaction: In Britain many people fully define themselves by their allegiance to a football club. Really! They usually learn to laugh off an insult to their club, but it hurts. Laughing off an insult is an essential modern skill - up to a point. |
| 20586 | Free speech does not include the right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre [Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: Oliver Wendell Holmes (in 1919) noted that freedom of speech does not include the right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre. | |
| From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 1 'Conflict') | |
| A reaction: The point here is that such irresponsible free speech does not even require legislation, and there is probably already some law under which the perpetrator could be prosecuted. |
| 22829 | Allowing defamatory speech is against society's interests, by blurring which people are trustworthy [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The argument for restricting defamatory speech is that unrestricted speech makes it impossible, or too difficult, to distinguish between those who deserve a trustworthy reputation and those who don't - a distinction in society's best interests. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 03) | |
| A reaction: A nice example of appeal to the common good, in opposition to the normal freedoms of liberalism. An example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Should assertion of the common good of a group be a prime value of liberalism? |
| 23136 | Liberal free speech is actually paid speech [Gopnik] |
| Full Idea: What liberals call free speech or a free press is invariably paid speech. | |
| From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
| A reaction: He give this as the left-wing view of liberalism. The much-hated social media are a substantial breech in this tendency. Sales of newspapers are declining everywhere, so the battle is for television channels. |