PO207 - Week Thirteen – Mill and Freedom of Speech
Mill and Freedom of Speech
Lecture
- Mill was a defender of political freedom. More specifically, of freedom of thought,
speech and expression. This has been protected in constitutional law. For
example, the US constitutions’ First Amendment forbids Congress from making any
law ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’. Furthermore, the constitution
of the PRC states that citizens can ‘enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of
assembly’. However, just because the constitution says it, doesn’t mean it always
happens.
- In Schenck v. United States 1919, First Amendment rights were disregarded.
During WWI, members of the Socialist Party in the USA distributed flyers urging
men to resist the draft. This constituted a crime. The US supreme court ruled out
First Amendment rights as a defence of the Socialist Party, as what they were doing
posed a ‘clear and present danger’ or crime. Another example is Clarence
Brandenburg, a KKK leader in Ohio. In 1964, Brandenburg made a speech calling
for the forced expulsion of African Americans and Jews. In 1969 in the case
Brandenburg v. Ohio, the supreme court decided this speech could not be punished
because it was protected by the First Amendment, and in punishing him, all hell
could break loose. In 1983, feminists Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon
drafted the ‘Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance’ which intended to treat porn
as a violation of women’s civil rights, and would allow those women harmed by
porn to sue the pornographers for civil damages. The ordinance was passed by the
city of Indianapolis in 1984, but in the case American Booksellers v. Hudnut, the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ordinance as unconstitutional, and
used the First Amendment to support its case.
- Speakers invited to give talks at prominent universities have also generated
controversy. In 2017, UC Berkeley cancelled an appearance by far-right speaker
Milo Yiannopoulos after substantial protests. In 2015, 3000 Cardiff Uni students
signed a petition for Germaine Greer to be ‘no-platformed’ by the uni on account of
her transphobia. Despite this, the uni went ahead with her talks. Denying platforms
to extremist speakers has often been criticised of threatening free speech, but does
free speech have its limits?
- Now let’s move onto talking about Mill more specifically.
- In 1859, Mill published his defence of political liberty (more specifically, a defence
of freedom of expression). Mill was motivated to write this by the rise of democracy,
and by a growing concern that liberty was normally focussed around protecting
people against despotic tyrants. For Mill, freedom could also be restricted by
democratically made laws, and the ‘tyranny of opinion’. He took issue with
majoritarian democracy which enables a party to become government with tiny tiny
majorities. He said this would lead to ‘tyranny of the majority’.
, PO207 - Week Thirteen – Mill and Freedom of Speech
- Mill argued that in supressing freedom of expression, humans will be limited in our
ability to discover the truth. If we decide to supress a certain opinion, it might turn
out that the supressed view was the true view. To decide that a view isn’t true
because we do not think it is true would mean that we are assuming our own
infallibility. But we know that we’re fallible!
- Even if a view isn’t exactly true, it is still useful for it to be expressed. It is important
for our views to be open to debate and challenge, because if we don’t, we come to
hold them as ‘dead dogmas’. To have a proper understanding of our own views, we
need to understand the reasons for holding them which can only come through
criticism and contestation.
- Mill argued that individuality of character is very valuable. Everyone is different,
and everyone’s idea of a ‘good life’ is different. This requires a freedom to choose
how to live, and what to believe. Therefore, by restricting the views and opinion
expressed or available might dampen the possibility for individuality.
- Mill argued that it isn’t just the law or government which can be restrictive, but also
the ‘moral coercion of public opinion’. Public opinion and social pressure can
discourage and suppress the truth! Social pressure to conform can prevent the
debate and contestation required for us to truly understand the beliefs we hold, as
well as dampening individual character.
- However, Mill also believed there should be limits to freedom, and this can be found
in his Harm Principle. The Harm Principle states that people should be free to
express opinions, except when it may result in the harm of others. Eg) shouting ‘fire’
in a crowded theatre. Many US Supreme Court rulings are based upon this idea:
speech can only be punished if it is likely to directly cause law-breaking. The Harm
Principle, however, might allow for a lot of restrictions on speech. For example, a
squeamish person may want to ban gory television programmes. Or a homophobic
person may feel disgusted reading pro-LGBTQ+ literature, or seeing positive news
items on it. Mill’s response to this is that speech and expression cannot be
restricted to prevent offence. Offence is different from harm!
- One place where the boundaries of the harm principle become unclear is when we
discuss hate speech. According to Bhikhu Parekh, hate speech ‘expresses,
encourages, stirs up, or incites hatred against a group of individuals distinguished
by a particular feature or set of features such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion,
nationality, and sexual orientation’. Hate speech has three core features: a) it is
targeted based on irrelevant features, b) it is stigmatising and c) it presents its
target as a legitimate target of hostility, and encourages discrimination.
- Therefore, hate speech cause harm through hostility and discrimination. It can also
directly cause psychological, and even physical injury to those it targets: ‘victims of
vicious hate propaganda have experienced physiological symptoms and emotional
distress ranging from fear in the gut, rapid pulse rate and difficulty in breathing,
