The question of freedom of expression is not something that only our generation has been grappling with. It has a long history. Endless times it has been discussed and debated, and yet, here we are, unsure about how to answer this simple question: why is free speech important in a modern democracy? As Jonathan Haidt points out, the best answer to this question comes from the English philosopher John Stuart Mill.
In his famous book On Liberty, the arguments laid down by John Stuart Mill on freedom of expression are of enduring value. Chapter Two of this book is of particular significance to our discussion where he presents a case for freedom of opinion and its expression. There are three key arguments that Mill makes here. Let’s take a look at them one by one.
“The opinion may possibly be true”
We can never be sure that the opinion we are trying to stifle is a false opinion. One has to consider this possibility under all circumstances. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because some people are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty.
Even if the dissenting voice consists of one person and the rest of the humanity considers that voice untrue, they should still allow that voice to be aired. Doubt can sometimes be problematic, but it also has the capability to protect you. Don’t ever miss out on asking…what if?
“He who knows only his side of the case”
How does the process of finding out the truth work? You start with a broad idea, and slowly narrow it down, until you get to the specifics which will then guide you towards the answer. Along the way you can only narrow down the search if you are able to consider the arguments that go against your biases and beliefs. Otherwise, we end up confirming only our biases, which means we make no progress along the journey and only reach the point where we had started.
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.
“Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them”
We live in a world where different ideologies and worldviews are constantly clashing against one another. It’s not always possible to either accept or reject a worldview in its entirety. In most cases, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And it’s only through constant engagement, discussions, even provocations that we can extract the best of ideas from different viewpoints.
Truth, in the great practical concerns
John Stuart Mill
of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and
combining of opposites
The arguments of John Stuart Mill on freedom of expression are powerful ones and hold enduring value irrespective of the time and place. For Mill, freedom is good and oppression is evil. And there is a peculiar kind of evil in silencing an opinion: it is robs the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
Kalampedia 