Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-13T16:36:45.031Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Free Expression

from Part II - Critical Legal Moralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2023

Steven Wall
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access

Summary

The right to free expression is of special importance for any discussion of the legal and social enforcement of morality. This is true for two main sets of reasons. First, the free expression and communication of ideas in a political society profoundly affects its ethical environment. The right to free expression, or more precisely the social condition that is brought about by the adequate recognition and protection of the right, is itself a public good. Second, the free expression and communication of ideas, especially ideas relevant to politics, is widely considered to be a condition of government legitimacy. Governments that wrongly deny their subjects the right to freely express their ideas forfeit a claim to rule over them. This chapter engages with both sets of reasons, which are referred to as the public good consideration and the legitimacy consideration, respectively, with an eye toward clarifying the grounds of the right to free expression and the limits to its scope. The chapter pays special attention to the issue of whether the right to free expression extends to so-called dangerous speech; that is, speech that advocates for violence against the government and/or certain targeted groups.

Type
Chapter
Information
Enforcing Morality , pp. 168 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Free Expression
  • Steven Wall, University of Arizona
  • Book: Enforcing Morality
  • Online publication: 03 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009363808.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Free Expression
  • Steven Wall, University of Arizona
  • Book: Enforcing Morality
  • Online publication: 03 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009363808.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Free Expression
  • Steven Wall, University of Arizona
  • Book: Enforcing Morality
  • Online publication: 03 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009363808.009
Available formats
×