Free Expression or Equal Speech?

Abstract

The classical liberal doctrine of free expression asserts the priority of speech as an extension of the freedom of thought. Yet its critics argue that freedom of expression, itself, demands the suppression of the so-called “silencing speech” of racists, sexists, and so on, as a threat to the equal expressive rights of others. This essay argues that the claim to free expression must be distinguished from claims to equal speech. The former asserts an equal right to express one’s thoughts without interference; the latter the right to address others, and to receive a hearing and consideration from them, in turn. I explore the theory of equal speech in light of the ancient Athenian practice of isegoria and argue that the equality demanded is not distributive but relational: an equal speaker’s voice should be counted as “on a par” with others. This ideal better captures critics’ concerns about silencing speech than do their appeals to free expression. Insofar as epistemic and status-harms provide grounds for the suppression and exclusion of some speech and speakers, the ideal of equal speech is more closely connected with the freedom of association than of thought. Noticing this draws attention to the continuing—and potentially problematic—importance of exclusion in constituting effective sites of equal speech today.

The Marketplace of Ideas and the Agora: Herodotus on the Power of Isegoria

“…But the Histories suggest that democratic dignity should not be understood in epistemic terms but in terms of power. My account thus departs from Teresa Bejan’s account of isegoria , which casts it as a claim of epistemic equality grounded in the formal rights of the Athenian assembly (2021). 9 The Histories , I argue, instead display the transformative effects of isegoria on the Athenians and Athens.…”

“…It is precisely because Herodotus finds the most significant effects of isegoria in the larger political culture rather than particular institutions or laws that his account is relevant today. Bejan (2021) notes that the negative protection against government interference promised by the First Amendment and the popular belief in a substantive right to say what one wishes are often conflated in a way that obscures larger issues and offers her account of isegoria as epistemic dignity as a way of clarifying these different objectives. But Herodotus's treatment of isegoria suggests that the very fact that public discourse blurs these distinctions is important.…”

“…As Bejan notes, the doctrine of freedom of expression originated in religious arguments for liberty of conscience made by Protestant dissenters. In her apt phrase, it was “rendered secular and respectable” (Bejan 2021, 156) by John Stuart Mill (see also Bejan 2017). Although Mill never explicitly called for a marketplace of ideas, in On Liberty he claims that free speech is essential for finding the truth: “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.…”

“…Herodotus’s narrative urges that this resistance to domination can spur the domination of others. As Ward (2008) observes, Athenian freedom involves the domination of other Greek city-states, and as Bejan notes, the inclusive energy of the Athenian assembly rested on those whom it excluded (2021, 165–6). Power affects character, for mass and elite alike, in ways that contemporary democratic theorists should consider.…”

“…2 https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/. 3 https://www.objectivejournalism.org/p/a-more-specific-letter-onjustice.4 SeeHoward (2019) for an overview;Bejan (2021).…”