- So let's begin by talking about freedom of expression.
And let me give you a rundown of a classic defense
of maximal freedom of expression from John Stuart Mill.
So John Stuart Mill defends the idea
of freedom of expression for a number of different reasons
and based on a number of different grounds.
Suppose I wanna say something, whatever it is
it might be true and it might be false.
And John Stuart Mill gives us arguments for why quite apart
from whether what I'm saying is true or false
I should still be free to say it.
So suppose that what I'm saying is true,
just about everybody's going to agree that
like people should be free to say things that are true.
What if what I'm saying is false and in fact false?
We all know and it is a fact
that what I'm about to say is false.
Are we justified in shutting that person up?
John Stuart Mill says no, because what we don't want
he says is for our true opinions to turn into dogma.
A true opinion that converts
into dogma is an opinion that you are no longer aware of
why you've come to believe it in the first place.
Dogmas are the kinds of things that are susceptible
to an attack from the outside.
It is easy for us to lose track of what is
in fact true unless our true opinions are confronted
with like false opinions in the like free market of ideas.
If I'm allowed to say what is false
then that presents a challenge to the true view.
And then people who believe the truth are going to
have to make that truth more robust.
They're gonna have to respond
to the false claims of somebody like me.
So in both of those cases says John Stuart Mill,
whether I say something that is true
or whether I say something that is false
it is a good idea to allow people to speak freely
even if those alternative possibilities are false.
Now, John Stuart Mill says more than merely that
he also says that like, look, there are things that most
of us think are true but are not in fact true.
And we should all try to have true beliefs.
That's like the function
of having beliefs in the first place.
They should be truth responsive.
So all opinions, all beliefs need to aim towards the truth.
Now it turns out that like throughout our history
lots of people have, you know, majorities
of people have thought what turned out to be false, right?
But they all thought that it was true.
The nice thing about allowing, permitting a space
where people can say just whatever they'd like
is that we can discover things that are in fact true
that we have until this point in time thought to be false.
There are currently lots of things.
Look, here's something philosophers often say.
They say that we all know that there are things
that we believe that are not in fact true.
Like right now you're walking around with a bunch
of beliefs and at least some of them are false.
The trouble is you don't know which
of those things are are false.
You right now have a bunch of false beliefs
but you don't know which ones are false.
If we don't allow people to say things freely, you may never
have the opportunity to correct your false beliefs.
And that is a service that somebody else does for us.
By allowing people to speak freely, they provide the service
of one, double checking our beliefs to see
whether or not we still believe the things that are true.
And two, to sort of clear
out the false things that we believe.
Now, John Stuart Mill thought
that there was a limit to this kind of speech.
And in fact that limit called the harm principle.
So the famous expression, you can't yell fire
in a crowded theater, that touches on the harm principle.
You're allowed to say whatever you want
but you can't say the kinds of things that are going to lead
to like clear and present dangers.
That's basically the only limit to freedom of expression,
otherwise it should be wide open.
Okay, so that's the argument in favor of freedom of speech
in favor of freedom of expression.
John Stuart Mill also thought he had this
empirical belief that like in the court of public opinion
the truth will eventually win out.
Okay, that informed a part
of his support of freedom of expression.
And if I had to choose one objection
to John Stuart Mills argument
it would be this one,
that like we don't have sufficient evidence to believe
that like the truth will in fact win out.
You'll notice that like right now
there are plenty of people who think that, you know
vaccinations are an attempt to control us
and they lead to all kinds of bad things or whatever.
I tend, those views are false, right?
But they are exceedingly popular.
You have a lot of like bunkum and nonsense out there.
And so it turns out that like in at least some places
the truth doesn't always win out.
Separate question is, what do we do about that?
So the approach of like maybe Facebook
and some other like large organizations is to adopt
a policy of like censoring those views.
Is that helping?
Is censorship actually going to help people
come to believe what is true?
I doubt it, but that would be
like the best objection that I can come
up with to John Stuart Mills' view.
Nevertheless, I still don't think that
like censorship is the right approach to that kind of thing.
Okay, so that's freedom of speech and freedom of expression.