Is freedom of speech meaningful if there is no freedom from consequences?

Question

How is freedom of speech meaningful if you have to always bear consequences of it like it would be in a society without freedom of speech?

In a democratic and free country you'll be punished if you communicate hate speech or anything that someone may deem offensive , similarly in a dictatorship you'll be punished if your speech offends the dictatorship.

Of course the punishment would be harsher and criteria of punishable speech would be different in a dictatorship , but that goes for all the laws in a dictatorship and not something specific to prohibition of free speech.

So essentially even in a free country you can only communicate something that is not offensive to someone, even then anyone can go legal and may prove that what you deemed innocent was actually offensive.

This is the same idea as in a dictatorship with only change in laws that tell whats offensive so whats the point of calling it free speech?

Answer 1

Unlimited freedom of speech would mean that you can say whatever you want without any negative consequences. This is impossible; you cannot say nasty things about all your friends and expect nothing bad to happen. Your friends would distance themselves from you, and they'd probably be right to do so. So in reality the choice is between different kinds of limited freedom of speech.

Some people like to say that freedom of speech is only freedom from the government taking legal action against you for what you said. According to this view, you have free speech no matter what private entities might do in response to your speech.

But suppose that you live in a company town, where a powerful corporation controls many aspects of your life. If you criticize the corporation, they will evict you from your home, which they own and only allow you to use as long as you maintain their definition of good behavior. Do you think you are free to speak in this town? Is it materially different from if the local government, rather than the corporation, is the one evicting you?

Private entities can be nearly as restrictive on free speech as government entities. To say that free speech is only when the government isn't punishing you for speaking, is like saying that freedom from racial discrimination is only when the government isn't treating you badly based on your race. No; it matters what private entities do, as well.

It is impossible not to accept some limitations on speech, and it is an act of doublespeak to try to define the term "free speech" so that it includes only the limitations you might approve of (private action against speech) and not the ones you don't approve of (government action against speech). Rather, the term "free speech" should be taken in the literal, unbiased sense we would get by combining the meaning of the word "free" with the meaning of the word "speech": a relative lack of limitations, of any kind, on speech. We may say that a country has free speech despite having many limitations on speech, and this should be understood in a relative sense; the country has relatively fewer limitations on free speech than many other countries.

Instead of trying to gerrymander the term "free speech" so it only counts the "good" free speech, let's bring the question out into the open. The material question is this. Which social rules concerning speech are beneficial to society, and which rules are harmful?

It's impossible to fully answer this question, but there are some considerations worth mentioning. First we should recognize that powerful individuals and groups have a tendency to want to hurt people who criticize them or contradict them. This tendency is harmful to society, because the criticisms may be legitimate. For example, the powerful entities may have done some harm, and the critics may be pointing this out so that the entities can be brought to justice or stripped of some of their power. In this case, the critics are doing society a service, and it would be harmful to society to punish them for it.

The critics are only doing society a service if they are telling the truth, of course. If they are lying or just mistaken, they could cause harm. So we might naively want to say that only truthful statements are allowed.

The first problem here is who determines whether the statements are truthful. This is why it is particularly harmful to society when the government suppresses criticism of itself. The government is both the arbiter of truth and the entity being criticized, and has a conflict of interest.

Libel laws are less inherently harmful, since the arbiter of truth is a judge or jury, hopefully without connections to the person who was criticized. However, judges and juries may still be mistaken or not have access to all the facts, and this can cause harm particularly when the law requires the critic to prove his assertions or be punished. Also, judges and juries may indeed have undisclosed bias or connections to the person who was criticized.

The harm done by an entity taking action to hurt those who criticize or contradict it depends on the power of that entity. Government, being the most powerful entity, has the greatest potential for harm. Private individuals of no greater wealth or power than their critics have a small potential for harm, at least as long as they restrict their retaliation to nothing more than denouncing or refusing to associate with the critic. If the critic's claims are seen to be valid, this limited amount of retaliation may be counterbalanced by approval from those who agree with the critic. Large and powerful corporations occupy a middle ground. A large enough corporation, like Amazon or Alphabet, can easily ruin someone's life or livelihood.

It's important also to recognize that the truth about contentious claims is rarely certain, and it may be unpopular. If minority opinions are suppressed (by public or private entities), the minority opinions never get a chance to get traction even when they happen to be true. Therefore, to ensure the truth is not unfairly suppressed, it is beneficial to allow a diversity of opinions.

That said, the spread of misinformation is a serious problem. Ideally we would have a forum where falsehoods could be quickly exposed - not through punishment or censorship, but through fact-checking.

Answer 2

Some parts of the world are described as "free countries" but this is never understood to mean absolute freedom where anyone may do as they like with no consequences whatsoever. Similarly, countries which commit themselves to free speech also recognize that certain types of speech (incitement to crime, shouting "jump" at a suicidal person on a bridge or "fire" in a crowded theatre, libel, reporting of court cases in progress and the like) still have the potential to cause serious harm if they are not regulated.

Just as there is a qualitative difference between North America and North Korea, even though both states have police forces authorised to imprison or kill, there is also a qualitative difference between states that permit a broad range of opinions to be expressed and states which do not.

However the more ideological commitments a state has, the more incentives it will have to limit the opinions which can be expressed. Hence, a state whose legitimacy depends on the teachings of a particular religion probably can't afford to allow that religion to be widely attacked. Secular propositions are no different: The Soviet Union under Stalin evidently believed that Mendelian inheritance had the potential to undermine its authority, otherwise it would not have used its resources to attempt to suppress this scientific theory. This may have been because of the Soviet Union's commitment to a particular understanding of human equality which Mendelian inheritance may have been felt to threaten. Turkey is, or was, a nationalistic regime where the concept of Turkishness played an important role justifying its secular system of government, hence from that viewpoint "insulting Turkishness" is not merely offensive but harmful and so this is remains a crime on the books.

On this basis, we can expect that states which don't depend on a particular way of life, or national culture, or ideological or religious commitment for their justification, will generally be more tolerant of what can be said in public, simply because they can afford to be.

It's important to note that the benefits of freedom of speech are not evenly distributed and tend to accrue to groups hoping to make social change but lacking in political power. This explains the fact that communists in the West were historically strong advocates for freedom of speech but Communist regimes were not. Similarly, in the 1960s and 70s the liberal left advocated for broad and expansive definitions of freedom of speech while today it is usually right wing voices calling for more freedom of speech. Liberals, for whom most of the political agenda of the 60s and 70s have been implemented but now have the challenge of maintaining it, now often emphasize the limitations on freedom of speech or balance it against other freedoms.

Freedom of speech is meaningful to the extent that limitations on it are minimal, proportionate to the harms those limitations are intended to prevent, and where strong constraints exist on groups with the potential to penalize unwelcome speech. These groups are not limited to state agencies, but also include entities with economic power such as corporations and advocacy groups, majorities and organised minorities.

True freedom of speech requires more than legal protections. It's not merely a limit on state power. It exists when people feel that it is a cultural value that powerful groups hesitate to threaten even when they have the capability, because they fear the reputational damage that would result.

Answer 3

Your intuition that freedom without freedom from consequence is not true freedom is partially correct.

According to the posthumanist moral rationalism known as Purism (Primus, 2021), freedom of expression should actually mean freedom from material consequences, whereby material consequences are consequences that are non-desired/wanted (valued in and of themselves), and yet may be needed or believed to be needed (as a means to some other goal). In other words, Purism makes a distinction between things of objective value (the things people need, serving as the means to what people want) and subjective value (the things people desire, being ends); it then states that freedom of expression is freedom from consequences of objective value but not consequences of subjective value (Primus, 2021).

So to put this more simply, if I yell "blue is my favorite color" (which is a claim of subjective value - a claim I want to make) I should have freedom from any change in my life of things that I believe I need (e.g., healthcare, impartial treatment from government, education opportunities, physical security, etc) and yet people may still treat me however they desire/want on the basis their subjective opinions (which is their freedom). The consequence is that I may lose all my friends who instead like the color red.

Noteably then, freedom does not exist in relation to material expressions, being expressions that agents believe they need to make (whether said belief is justified or not). All material expressions must be logical for the purpose they are valued, meaning a doctor (who believes that they need to treat a patient) does not have freedom of action or speech, but rather is duty-bound to act logically in the patient's interest.

Primus (2021). Purism: Logic as the basis of morality, Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, 29, 1–36. https://philarchive.org/rec/PRIPLA

Answer 4

As stated by other's the freedom of speech is the freedom from government sanctions on your speech.

Freedom from all consequences for speech would entail that we would need to restrict everyone else's freedoms to react to your speech.

Answer 5

When people discuss freedoms (at least in modern contexts) they consistently forget to mention — intentionally or not — that freedom entails responsibility. We are expected to use our freedoms in responsible ways: the freedom to own a gun entails a responsibility not to shoot it arbitrarily in public places; the freedom to own a car entails a responsibility not to endanger pedestrians; the freedom to cross state lines entails a responsibility not to carry contraband. Whenever we engage a private freedom, we have a public responsibility to maintain the peace of the community as best we can, or at least to have a credible reason for our acts if we end up disrupting the lives of others.

The point here is that (in a just society) no one suffers consequences for indulging their freedoms. Instead, they suffer consequences for failing their responsibilities.

The precept of Freedom of Speech means that the government will not interfere with any responsible exercise of speech. One can face legal consequences for screaming "Fire!' in a crowded room; one can face consequences for threatening someone with violence or mayhem; one can face consequences for spreading defamatory lies: these are all considered to be irresponsibly speech acts. But Freedom of Speech means the government will not establish consequences for responsible speech (even if that speech is disliked by others), and that it will establish consequences for other irresponsible acts, even when those irresponsible acts are in response to responsible but disliked speech. The intent is to funnel antagonistic groups into having responsible speech with each other, which — even if it's difficult — would (hopefully) lead towards resolutions.

Unfortunately, there is a vagueness in the notion of 'responsible speech' that is often abused or misused. Legal agents may give undue preference to certain people or groups, deciding that speech acts by such are never irresponsible, while speech acts against those people or groups are always irresponsible. The abuse that irks me most, personally, is that while we have a concept of libel or slander against individuals, we have no equivalent concept of irresponsible speech against groups. For instance, if I were to publicly (and falsely) accuse some individual of being a pedophile, I could be forced to publicly retract the statement or risk a painful legal judgement for slander. But by contrast, if I were to publicly (and falsely) accuse some group of being pedophiles — as has happened regularly to LGBTQ, non-Christians, and Democrats in recent years — there is no legal recourse whatsoever. Omissions like this allow sociopolitical actors to weaponize irresponsible speech under the rubric of free speech, to the detriment of us all.

Answer 6

TL;DR:

• Freedom of Speech is NOT an absolute
• Freedom of Speech is NOT an end in itself
• And freedom that is not universal is a mere privilege.

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1. Freedom of Speech is NOT an absolute

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You generally need to distinguish between the ability to do something and the "right" to do something and freedom of speech generally refers to the right rather than the ability. However "rights" do only make sense in the presence of and the relation to other people. In the absence of other people you could say anything and everything but as no one but yourself would hear it, it would be pointless.

So no the value and usefulness of speech intrinsically relies on being able to communicate with other entities. In other words it's not absolute, it's not outside of society, ever present, universal or whatnot. But it's on the contrary a very product of society and as such bound to the rules and regulations of that context.

Some simple examples of that might just be languages. Like you're not supposed to grunt and moan in public as you see fit, despite what we pretentiously call "language" might be barely more than moaning and grunting... Instead you're supposed to use words known to other people in that context.

Similarly different places and the social groups living their will make different experiences and communicate in different images, impressions, expressions, gestures and whatnot. One might pretentiously call that culture. Some parts of that are universal as humans are roughly equal compared to other animals, some parts will be unique to a time, space or social group.

So you're never "free" in your speech and expression, but you're always constraint by what your interlocutor is able to comprehend, accept or also how they interpret that. Otherwise you're just making random noise or have your noise be perceived as signals that you never intended to send in the first place.

For the most part "speech" is not an individual, but a social exercise and as such it's asinine to define it as an absolute individual right. You can technically do so, but it either lacks any meaning (absence of others), is quite useless (lack of understanding) or it becomes tyrannical (I'll come back to that later as that is bullet point 3).

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2. Freedom of Speech is NOT an end in itself

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For the most part you're already free to go in a cave, a forest, build yourself a sound proof room and scream into the void at full volume, for how long you like and whatever nonsense or sense comes to your mind.

Again that is not what people usually mean when they refer to free speech. Instead speech is again not a standalone feature that people care about, but they care about it in the context and in relation to a social group.

Yes that can include individual reception of noise, such as if your favorite part time is listening to Beethoven's 9th played on an orchestra of chain saws at 3 am in a densely populated city, which is really an acquired taste that takes some practice to appreciate the melody, while the rest will hear just noise... loud noise... obnoxiously loud noise... which contrary to the popular believe of some 17-19th century wise guys DOES actually do harm even if it doesn't, like idk sticks or stones, penetrate the skin or breaks bones...

But then again the thing that people object to isn't so much the individual pleasure, but the direct and indirect effect that it has on other people. And you're back again in the context of a society.

Were similarly to music or noise pollution, your moaning, grunting and scribbling aka "speech" is also rarely evaluated as a neutral thing, but rather interpreted by the effect it has on other the environment (particularly in the form of other people), the effect that you intent it to have or the effect that people think it might have or that you might have thought it would have...

So while apparently older generations thought of words having intrinsic power hence naming them swear or curse words akin to magical formulas that posses any intrinsic power on their own or just by reciting them (the rare exception being music where you're body might literally resonate with certain frequencies, but I guess people would consider that cheating (same as the chain saws) and would rather look at the "content" which could also be written and thus without direct physical effects). Usually the power of words isn't an intrinsic property of them, but the ability to trigger emotions within the recipient, which to be used deliberately would require social knowledge of the experiences and customs within a social group, as well as your own standing within the context of such a group. So the same words uttered by different people could trigger vastly different reactions. Classic example would be "I love you" which can trigger anything from deep joy to mortal fear, depending on whether it's said by your crush or a stalker.

So tl;dr it's usually not about the act of saying a word, but about the effect that it has on other people and oneself. Speech is just a tool not a goal.

The rebel/journalist isn't in anyway content, and thinks of having free speech, if the tyrant offers them a sound proof room and a typewrite directly feeding into a shredder as valve for their discomfort. The reason they want free speech is because they hope that by sharing their ideas they can pursue people to change the system (in their favor).

Also despite having said that words can very much hurt you, for example if they are loud enough, interrupt your regeneration process or trigger emotional reactions aso. The language of words, images and sounds is nonetheless less harmful and more constructive than for example other forms of communication like: violence. Yes that is a form of a very blunt form of communication where you communicate that you really want or don't want something or teach "empathy" by exemplifying quite vividly that something really hurts and how much it hurts.

Though "unfortunately" that is rarely interpreted in constructive ways and usually just ends up with an end of communication (death) or increasingly thorough questions of "do you really want THAT!", without ever actually answering the "question".

While more elaborate languages allow for the formulation of ideas, of formulas, of concepts, of mental images, of expressions of emotions that don't necessitate subjecting the other person directly to them, aso. So the idea is usually that if people are free and able to express themselves towards each other that dwarfs the necessity to express yourself more forcefully and violent.

It also usually came about in societal contexts which do value the perspective and freedom of the individual or which cherish information and knowledge and though if you give that space it would flourish and grow into something neat. Again there's a societal context and a purpose attached to it.

Though again if there is a purpose for it you can also investigate if the current state of the art serves that purpose. Like idk the necessity of free expression is the ability to exist and be able to express yourself in the first place. So taking aims at that for example negates the free speech of another person.

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3. And freedom that is not universal is a mere privilege.

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So sure if free speech is an absolute thing, then it stands outside of the context of the customs and regulations of mere mortals as a divine principle of thoughts... If it is an end in itself then, the end may justify certain means. Though as I tried to exemplify, free speech is hardly absolute (but a product of a society) and it's not an end in itself (but usually a means to achieve something else. Though a less forceful mean that for example violence which makes it more suitable for societies.)

So in other words you can ask what purpose it actually serve and you can ask whether the ends justify the means and whether the means even serve the ends in the first place.

And similar to most "freedoms", free speech has a fundamental intrinsic problem and that is that "freedom" occupies a weird space somewhere between the "freedom from" (from external pressure) and the "freedom to" (to as you like). And while there are domains where the two can coincide, if you'd increase the freedom to ad infinitum, it would inevitably manifest in the external pressure and thus the absence of freedom of other people. While similarly if you limit or even shrink the freedom to, that would likewise manifest itself as external pressure.

So both the person oppressed by a tyrant, as well as the tyrant itself, being restraint by principles of basic human decencies without which his followers would rebel, may yearn for "freedom".

So what does that freedom even mean and how can you obtain freedom without it being a mere privilege and subsequent revolutions always asking for freedom but never able to achieve anything beyond a never ending struggle for it?

Of course you can always take the conservative view of "freedom" is just a lack of discipline and people not doing it "the right way" and just solve the problem by not having freedom to begin with.

But that point of view "became" increasingly unpopular (not sure it ever was "popular", just because it was the ruling system to begin with), while freedom became something very popular as can be experienced by any individual and the most by those who have it the least, but even the most (relatively) unrestraint person might still have an appreciation of the idea of being free.

So if freedom is good how do we get more of it? Well you could either increase the freedom of one individual to unseen heights (but that would just be the previously held tyranny) or you could elevate every individual and give them more freedom that would be the concept of combining freedom with equality and making it a universal concept. The problem is that now everyone would be freer than they used to be but still bound without the context of the society of other people.

Though forming a society of free people deciding for and by themselves how much of their personal freedom they won't to give in exchange for receiving the vast benefits of cooperation that happen within society (yeah it's actually a net positive for almost everyone), is the closest people could get to having as much freedom as possible and being able to enjoy it without constant struggle and fear for your life.

So free speech is an integral part of that because the ability to participate in the decision making, the epistemic foundation of societal knowledge, the shaping of cultural colloquialisms, the ability to share goals, fears, aspirations, concerns, failures, successes and whatnot is integral to being free AND being part of society.

So free speech is vital for the function of a free society, but if it's purpose is to facilitate a pluralistic and free society, then you now also have a ruler in hand to see whether certain speech acts truly help or hamper that goal.

So for example lies, deceit, false accusations, defamation, libel, slander, threats, mis- and disinformation etc. which can very much be seen as counterproductive to that goal. If you push people outside of society or negate them their freedom, than you take a position of open antagonism and deprive them of their social relations and all the benefits that they would draw from them, to the point where this can be an existential threat (like how many people could live without society? ironically the poor might better than the rich... despite claims of "doing it all by themselves"). So these things can cause tension without society and depending on the severity for the individual or society can manifest themselves in violence, open conflict and the disruption of society.

So the preservation of society, as the necessity for the meaningfulness of free speech, as well as the free speech of other people, might as well end up trumping the intention of the individual to freely spew hateful bullshit.

That being said, while lies are problematic, you still got to be able to present ideas before they are fully functional. Like you could hardly do science without ever being wrong... or report about recent events without the fear of being proven wrong later on. So making predictions and speculations may occupy overlapping territory with lies and falsehoods, if not at the time of uttering then in the future.

So just because you identified certain things as problematic doesn't mean you can just easily solve them. It's a dance on razors edge between allowing as much freedom as possible to facilitate a free and open exchange of ideas, a mutual cooperation and a respect for the dignity of every individual, while denying the kind of speech that actively aims to undermine that.

Now that's easy when it comes to idk "Kill all the X", it becomes less easy when it's more subtle like accusations of crimes (might be true, might not be, protection of perpetrators vs protection of innocent people being wrongly accused) and just in general protecting the freedom of people from being dominated by others, while making sure that they themselves aren't dominating others.

So in a sense it still is that never ending struggle just that the means of struggling have become more sophisticated and the freedom of the individual might have been raised in some domains (as members of society), while in other domains it has been decreased by being a member of a society.

So TL;DR freedom is a very complex thing if you don't just see it as maximizing your own freedom at the expense of other people, in which case you violate their freedom...

Answer 7

It is easier if we just look at a less ambitious subset of absolute freedom of speech: absolute freedom to publicly defend a certain thesis.

Because this would exclude a lot of obnoxious stuff which is prohibited everywhere, including countries arguably maintaining a high respect for free speech, e.g. the US (contrary to Europe).

Still, even this subset is problematic, because of libel laws. And libel laws are something dictators always abuse first, for example Hitler endlessly sued newspapers for libel before he was in power.

But formally we can differentiate the US from a dictatorship, because at least any opinion, which is not about single individuals, can legally be publicly defended. You can, for example, legally deny the holocaust.

For European democracies this is much more difficult, probably impossible.

For example, what is the difference between criminalizing Armenian genocide denial (France) or criminalizing the claim that the Armenian genocide happened (which counts as the crime of “insulting Turkishness”, article 301 of the Turkish penal code)?

Formally there is no difference. Of course, I believe that the Armenian genocide happened and so that Turkey's law is horrible, while I am relaxed about France's law. But if I argue that way, I leave the meta-level which tries to be neutral of the validity and worth of an opinion.

Answer 8

How is freedom of speech meaningful if you have to always bear consequences of it like it would be in a society without freedom of speech?

Cort Ammon, above, had it right: "Freedom of speech is specifically the freedom from legal action in response to your speech. It is not a freedom from all consequences."

As a good contemporary example, you have no right not to be offended. But when someone posts something online which is not precisely in line with the received wisdom on that issue, they are often savaged by legions of true believers.

But however fiercely they believe in their cause, the true believers may not call upon the public prosecutors to press charges. The unfortunate poster, in their turn, has no right to shut down the speech of the firey critics.

Answer 9

The phrase "freedom of speech" describes the ability one has in expressing opinions publicly, ex writing a book, a blog, writing in this site etc. Freedom - in all forms - always goes hand-in-hand with responsibility. There is no such thing as freedom of consequences, not in this World : that's the one side of the coin.

And in the other side, is the cold truth : you can say whatever you want, unless you mess with the system. And each system has its own layers and methods to deal with such problems.

Answer 10

Freedom of speech is specifically the freedom from legal action in response to your speech. It is not a freedom from all consequences. In fact, in realistic implementations, such as those in the USA, freedom of speech is limited. There are things which can draw legal action by being said (libel, threats of violence, etc.).

Freedom of speech is important in a government which prides itself on following rules. Many governments explicitly put more power in the rules than in the people enforcing the rules. The logic is simple: people may not be trusted, but rules are rules.

If a government is unable to punish you for your speech because they officially have "free speech," then they are forced to find other reasons/ways to punish you. This process is much harder than simply throwing you in jail for your speech directly, so it provides a key check for these governments.