The Greatest Defense of Free Speech (John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”)
Description
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) penned the most powerful and winsome defense of the freedom of speech, but it is not without its presuppositions. Those assumptions have eroded in our culture, which means the freedom of speech is eroding, too. Are human beings mouthpieces of power and prejudice, or is the truth a valuable common ground from which we can evaluate each other’s ideas? Mill concludes that censorship is hubris and indoctrination is cowardice.
13 Arguments for the Freedom of Speech
Summarized arguments from John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, by Mark Stanley
- Argument #1: Since all people are fallible and have experienced being set right on something they were previously certain of, we should take precautions against our own fallibility.
- Argument #2: Confidence that you are right only comes from hearing the best available counterarguments, and still finding them unpersuasive.
- Argument #3: Holding any proposition off-limits is to proclaim your knowledge infallible.
- Argument #4: Persecuting people you disagree with is dangerous. The people who killed Socrates and Jesus thought they were doing good. At the end of the day, you just don’t know who you’re persecuting. They may be right!
- Argument #5: Approving persecution might be a result of your blindspots. Marcus Aurelius, who persecuted Christians, didn’t realize that they taught basically the same things as what he wrote. Although of course he denied the theology, the practices were almost the same.
- Argument #6: Persecution might actually work. History tells us that truth is sometimes effectively suppressed by persecution.
- Argument #7: Suppressing freedom of speech is just forcing people to lie. Why force an atheist to lie under oath (about his religious convictions) that he won’t lie under oath (about a legal case)?
- Argument #8: Social stigma from unpopular opinions affects working-class people who depend on their reputation for income, while those who have no need of others are free to say what they want. Legal penalties for certain viewpoints strengthen a social stigma, which is often more dangerous than the legal penalties themselves.
- Argument #9: By having a category of “heresy,” we stifle young brilliant minds who spend their time making sure they don’t come to the wrong conclusions rather than truly thinking through a bold, vigorous, independent train of thought.
- Argument #10: Controversy inspires lively, strong, examined beliefs.
“However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.” (p34)
- Argument #11: If you do not allow people to think through their own beliefs, then they will not believe them because they are true, they will believe them because they are told to. People should not have opinions that cannot stand against the most superficial objections, because then they don’t know truth… They know superstitions which just happen to be true.
- Argument #12: You can’t really know your own position unless you hear it cross examined, and the alternatives are explored.
- Argument #13: If you care about truth, you should want controversy, because without controversy the defenders of truth get complacent.