What is Freedom of Speech, and Why Do We Cherish It?

Many citizens know instinctively that free speech is a core value of Western democracy, without which the rest of our liberties would be placed in jeopardy. But this conviction is not always accompanied by a well grounded comprehension of the limits of free speech and the personal and societal values it serves. This essay seeks to close that gap, by offering a deeper discussion of the meaning of free speech, its reasonable limits, and the reasons we have for cherishing it.

As Aristotle observed over two millennia ago, we humans are endowed with a faculty without which political and social life would be impossible: speech. It is our ability to communicate our thoughts, feelings and opinions in words and symbols that enables us to participate in purposeful, cooperative forms of life oriented toward shared goals like a just society and a flourishing way of life.

Without speech, we are cut off from the goods of civil life, such as friendship, rational inquiry, and statesmanship. Indeed, without the use of a public language, we could not engage in productive rational deliberation with others and would have to blindly submit to our own impulses and those of our peers, much as cattle wander around in search of pasture.

1. Defining Freedom of Speech

The sublime goods associated with the capacity for speech – principally friendship, the pursuit of truth, artistic expression, and service of the common good – may be compromised or damaged in a society that does not defend or promote relatively free and untrammelled speech. But what exactly is “free speech”?