Free Speech And Why It Matters

Free Speech And Why It Matters PDF Author: Andrew Doyle
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0349135398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
'Impassioned, scholarly and succinct' The Times FREE SPEECH AND WHY IT MATTERS Free speech is the bedrock of all our liberties, and yet in recent years it has come to be mistrusted. A new form of social justice activism, which perceives language as potentially violent, has prompted a national debate on where the limitations of acceptable speech should be drawn. Governments throughout Europe have enacted 'hate speech' legislation to curb the dissemination of objectionable ideas, Silicon Valley tech giants are collaborating to ensure that they control the limitations of public discourse, and campaigners in the US are calling for revisions to the First Amendment. However well-intentioned, these trends represent a threat to the freedoms that our ancestors fought and died to secure. In this incisive and fascinating book, Andrew Doyle addresses head-on the most common concerns of free speech sceptics, and offers a timely and robust defence of this most foundational of principles.

Free Speech And Why It Matters

Free Speech And Why It Matters PDF Author: Andrew Doyle
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0349135398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Impassioned, scholarly and succinct' The Times FREE SPEECH AND WHY IT MATTERS Free speech is the bedrock of all our liberties, and yet in recent years it has come to be mistrusted. A new form of social justice activism, which perceives language as potentially violent, has prompted a national debate on where the limitations of acceptable speech should be drawn. Governments throughout Europe have enacted 'hate speech' legislation to curb the dissemination of objectionable ideas, Silicon Valley tech giants are collaborating to ensure that they control the limitations of public discourse, and campaigners in the US are calling for revisions to the First Amendment. However well-intentioned, these trends represent a threat to the freedoms that our ancestors fought and died to secure. In this incisive and fascinating book, Andrew Doyle addresses head-on the most common concerns of free speech sceptics, and offers a timely and robust defence of this most foundational of principles.

Speech Matters

Speech Matters PDF Author: Seana Valentine Shiffrin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691173613
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
To understand one another as individuals and to fulfill the moral duties that require such understanding, we must communicate with each other. We must also maintain protected channels that render reliable communication possible, a demand that, Seana Shiffrin argues, yields a prohibition against lying and requires protection for free speech. This book makes a distinctive philosophical argument for the wrong of the lie and provides an original account of its difference from the wrong of deception. Drawing on legal as well as philosophical arguments, the book defends a series of notable claims—that you may not lie about everything to the "murderer at the door," that you have reasons to keep promises offered under duress, that lies are not protected by free speech, that police subvert their mission when they lie to suspects, and that scholars undermine their goals when they lie to research subjects. Many philosophers start to craft moral exceptions to demands for sincerity and fidelity when they confront wrongdoers, the pressures of non-ideal circumstances, or the achievement of morally substantial ends. But Shiffrin consistently resists this sort of exceptionalism, arguing that maintaining a strong basis for trust and reliable communication through practices of sincerity, fidelity, and respecting free speech is an essential aspect of ensuring the conditions for moral progress, including our rehabilitation of and moral reconciliation with wrongdoers.

Free Speech on Campus

Free Speech on Campus PDF Author: Erwin Chemerinsky
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231865
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Can free speech coexist with an inclusive campus environment? Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry. In this clear and carefully reasoned book, a university chancellor and a law school dean—both constitutional scholars who teach a course in free speech to undergraduates—argue that campuses must provide supportive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body but can never restrict the expression of ideas. This book provides the background necessary to understanding the importance of free speech on campus and offers clear prescriptions for what colleges can and can’t do when dealing with free speech controversies.

Free Speech, The People's Darling Privilege

Free Speech, The People's Darling Privilege PDF Author: Michael Kent Curtis
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822325291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
A review chapter is also included to bring the story up-to-date."--Jacket.

Why Free Speech Matters

Why Free Speech Matters PDF Author: Jamie Whyte
Publisher: Do Sustainability
ISBN: 0255368070
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
What is free speech? How is it under threat? And why should it be defended at all costs? In this succinct and insightful book, author Jamie Whyte contends that free speech brings fundamental benefits to society – it promotes the growth of knowledge and provides an essential bulwark against tyranny. He argues against new attempts to constrain free speech – particularly in social media – and critiques the rationale of politicians and activists who seek to limit it. And he proposes a key test – a limiting principle – which legislators and judges should apply against any proposed curtailment of free speech. Being offensive, for example, wouldn’t pass this test – because important new ideas are often offensive to people whose worldview they challenge. Whyte also issues a rallying cry: Those who prize free speech must once again come to its defence – as he outlines exactly Why Free Speech Matters.

Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech

Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech PDF Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439105359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 557

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Book Description
Freedom of speech is one of our greatest legal rights and Cass Sunstein is one of our greatest legal theorists. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the free speech issues facing this generation. -- Akhil Amar, Southmayd Professor, Yale Law School This is an important book. Beautifully clear and carefully argued, Sunstein's contribution reaches well beyond the confines of academic debate. It will be of interest to any citizen concerned about freedom of speech and the current state of American democracy. -- Joshua Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology How can our constitutional protection of free speech serve to strengthen democracy? Cass Sunstein challenges conventional answers with a remarkable array of lucid arguments and legal examples. There is no better book on the subject. -- Amy Gutmann, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor, Princeton University

The Irony of Free Speech

The Irony of Free Speech PDF Author: Owen Fiss
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674036918
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
How free is the speech of someone who can't be heard? Not very--and this, Owen Fiss suggests, is where the First Amendment comes in. In this book, a marvel of conciseness and eloquence, Fiss reframes the debate over free speech to reflect the First Amendment's role in ensuring public debate that is, in Justice William Brennan's words, truly uninhibited, robust, and wide-open. Hate speech, pornography, campaign spending, funding for the arts: the heated, often overheated, struggle over these issues generally pits liberty, as embodied in the First Amendment, against equality, as in the Fourteenth. Fiss presents a democratic view of the First Amendment that transcends this opposition. If equal participation is a precondition of free and open public debate, then the First Amendment encompasses the values of both equality and liberty. By examining the silencing effects of speech--its power to overwhelm and intimidate the underfunded, underrepresented, or disadvantaged voice--Fiss shows how restrictions on political expenditures, hate speech, and pornography can be defended in terms of the First Amendment, not despite it. Similarly, when the state requires the media to air voices of opposition, or funds art that presents controversial or challenging points of view, it is doing its constitutional part to protect democratic self-rule from the aggregations of private power that threaten it. Where most liberal accounts cast the state as the enemy of freedom and the First Amendment as a restraint, this one reminds us that the state can also be the friend of freedom, protecting and fostering speech that might otherwise die unheard, depriving our democracy of the full range and richness of its expression.

Free Speech in the Balance

Free Speech in the Balance PDF Author: Alexander Tsesis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108335012
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Free Speech in the Balance is the first comprehensive study of proportional analysis in free speech theory. This book challenges the US Supreme Court's categorical approach and explains the importance of understanding the breadth of concerns arising from regulations directly and indirectly impacting expression. The author provides in-depth analysis of some of the important social and political principles governing topics of vital concern, including campaign financing, university speech codes, secondary school rules, incitement, and threats. This book should be read by students and scholars of free speech theory and anyone interested in learning more about the history of existing law, the issues of current importance, and trends in expressive significance.

The Most Human Right

The Most Human Right PDF Author: Eric Heinze
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547244
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights? Are they laid out definitively in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the US Bill of Rights? Are they items on a checklist—dignity, justice, progress, standard of living, health care, housing? In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed. International organizations constantly report on how governments manage human goods, such as fair trials, humane conditions of detention, healthcare, or housing. But to appease autocratic regimes, experts have ignored the primacy of free speech. Heinze argues that goods become rights only when citizens can claim them publicly and fearlessly: free speech is the fundamental right, without which the very concept of a “right” makes no sense. Heinze argues that throughout history countless systems of justice have promised human goods. What, then, makes human rights different? What must human rights have that other systems have lacked? Heinze revisits the origins of the concept, exploring what it means for a nation to protect human rights, and what a citizen needs in order to pursue them. He explains how free speech distinguishes human rights from other ideas about justice, past and present.

Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, 1870-1920

Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, 1870-1920 PDF Author: David M. Rabban
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521655378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Most American historians and legal scholars incorrectly assume that controversies and litigation about free speech began abruptly during World War I. However, there was substantial debate about free speech issues between the Civil War and World War I. Important free speech controversies, often involving the activities of sex reformers and labor unions, preceded the Espionage Act of 1917. Scores of legal cases presented free speech issues to Justices Holmes and Brandeis. A significant organization, the Free Speech League, became a principled defender of free expression two decades before the establishment of the ACLU in 1920. World War I produced a major transformation in American liberalism. Progressives who had viewed constitutional rights as barriers to needed social reforms came to appreciate the value of political dissent during its wartime repression. They subsequently misrepresented the prewar judicial hostility to free speech claims and obscured prior libertarian defenses of free speech based on commitments to individual autonomy.