The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Free Speech as a Means to Truth

Upon reading the book “A History of Dangerous Assumptions” by John Molesworth, I came across a section of this book that is very illuminative of the importance of Free Speech in obtaining Truth. This section is:

JOHN STUART MILL: ON LIBERTY, 1859  

This philosopher, political economist and member of parliament was one of the greatest foes of the making of assumptions. His essay On Liberty is one of his most famous works.

He states the necessity for plural debate, for taking absolutely nothing for granted, but holding all our dearest assumptions up for national scrutiny.

There must be ‘protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose… its own ideas and practices… on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development of any individuality not in harmony with its ways’.

After only a few pages we find Mill coming up with ‘a very simple principle’:

“That the sole end for which mankind is warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the Liberty of Action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

He adds that (to interfere with someone’s liberty of action) for his own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. Moving from liberty of action to liberty of speech, another memorable idea is expressed:

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; and robbing those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.”

In this continuing discussion of the value of discussion, Mill soon reaches another principle:

“All silencing of discussion is ‘an Assumption of Infallibility’.”

He points out that even the Roman Catholic Church, the most intolerant of churches, before the canonisation of a saint, nevertheless admits, and listens patiently to, a ‘devil’s advocate’. Similarly, if no one had been permitted to question the ideas of Isaac Newton, mankind could not feel as sure of those truths as they do now.

And if we think we can sometimes overlook the silencing of an opinion because we perceive it to be so disgracefully ‘impious’ or ‘immoral’, Mill urges us to think again – because this is the case above all others in which it is fatal. ‘This is exactly the occasion on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes which excite the horror and astonishment of posterity.’ This kind of mistake led to the execution of Socrates (executed for impiety and immorality), Christ (executed for blasphemy) and the persecutions of Christians by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (for undermining the stability of society). These mistakes show that even the most enlightened possessors of power are capable of making huge errors as a result of alternative opinion being silenced. But in these cases, Mill asks:

“What was the real mischief? I must be permitted to observe, that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine which I call an Assumption of Infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, (Mill’s italics) without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. “

Has Mill’s liberty of speech ever been more relevant than now, when some British universities and public institutions seem spinelessly to allow the silencing of opinion by the bullying behaviour of ‘activists’ in their precincts? Or blocking the production of newspapers they don’t approve of?

John Stuart Mill concludes his thorough and muscular reasoning by stating that ‘without the collision of adverse opinions’ the truth has little chance of being discovered, and what is found is more likely to be held by prejudice rather than with confidence and conviction. The human race is thereby ‘robbed’ of the truth.

Thus, he notes that as a lawyer, Cicero, one of the greatest of all orators, always studied his adversary’s argument with as great an intensity as his own, if not more so.

At a less exalted level, perhaps, but similarly, in all real markets the true price of an asset can only be discovered by the free opinions of buyers and sellers.

We must remember that there is no Free Speech unless there is Free Speech for all. Thus, without free speech for all, there cannot be any truths, and anyone who would suppress free speech is not interested in obtaining the truth. We also should remember that the truth shall set you free, and without freedom, there can be no progress for humankind nor Liberties and Freedoms for all.