In today’s world, freedom of speech holds maybe the most significant political value and fundamental right in society. Even though it is not always positive and in need of regulation in areas such as slander and hateful expression towards ethnic, cultural and sexual identity of persons, it is considered a fundamental human right. Many different positions exist that argue for the justification of freedom of speech. While each advocate for one major value in this paper I will argue that the best way for freedom of speech to be justified is in a non-consequentalist manner, such as autonomy. I will also explore the consequalist justification claim of discovery of truth and personal development. However I will prove that they do not provide strong
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There are often other factors involved, especially with commercial or hate speech that do not reflect the speaker’s autonomy. Such real life roadblocks to full autonomy can be lack of education, information and opportunities (Sunstein, 1995:143). Although these objections are valuable in addressing the difficulty of living fully autonomous they do not go beyond that. Therefore, autonomy provides a principled justification for free spree as a human capacity. So far, this essay has explored why consequentialist justifications fail to provide a strong base for free speech since it has to rely on the uncertainty of empirical arguments. However a non-consequentialist approach would provide much stronger justifications for free speech. In this aspect I will address autonomy and democratic participation. By considering these two as complimentary to each other they are able to strengthen the justification, by filling in the …show more content…
Lastly, a justification of democratic participation cannot provide a clear answer to the inclusion of revolutionary talk that aims to over-throw democracy. Therefore the justification as autonomy for free speech should include non-democratic speech under the free speech principle. By doing so it ensure that all individuals have the equal right to pursue whatever opinion or conception of good they believe is best for them. According to the autonomy argument, even people who are against democracy and do not believe in its concept, are able to freely speak of their conception of good since it falls under the freedom of speech is a requirement in order of their individual autonomy. In contrast stand those people who reject such revolutionary talk; they are still able to express their opinion freely and without fear of persecution as a requirement of their autonomy. Therefore for these reasons, the combination of the justification of autonomy and the justification of democratic participation are the most suitable interpretation for Mill’s freedom of speech
There are often other factors involved, especially with commercial or hate speech that do not reflect the speaker’s autonomy. Such real life roadblocks to full autonomy can be lack of education, information and opportunities (Sunstein, 1995:143). Although these objections are valuable in addressing the difficulty of living fully autonomous they do not go beyond that. Therefore, autonomy provides a principled justification for free spree as a human capacity. So far, this essay has explored why consequentialist justifications fail to provide a strong base for free speech since it has to rely on the uncertainty of empirical arguments. However a non-consequentialist approach would provide much stronger justifications for free speech. In this aspect I will address autonomy and democratic participation. By considering these two as complimentary to each other they are able to strengthen the justification, by filling in the …show more content…
Lastly, a justification of democratic participation cannot provide a clear answer to the inclusion of revolutionary talk that aims to over-throw democracy. Therefore the justification as autonomy for free speech should include non-democratic speech under the free speech principle. By doing so it ensure that all individuals have the equal right to pursue whatever opinion or conception of good they believe is best for them. According to the autonomy argument, even people who are against democracy and do not believe in its concept, are able to freely speak of their conception of good since it falls under the freedom of speech is a requirement in order of their individual autonomy. In contrast stand those people who reject such revolutionary talk; they are still able to express their opinion freely and without fear of persecution as a requirement of their autonomy. Therefore for these reasons, the combination of the justification of autonomy and the justification of democratic participation are the most suitable interpretation for Mill’s freedom of speech