One of those interesting moments in the discussion of free speech where one can usefully ask why free speech is good. 1/n - ThreadSky

harkaway.bsky.social • 31 days ago

One of those interesting moments in the discussion of free speech where one can usefully ask why free speech is good. 1/n

Reposted from

MN law says you can’t *knowingly* spread fake, AI media content with the *intent* to influence an election.

X just sued to overturn that law. They’re fighting for the right to lie to us.

“Elon Musk’s X sues to overturn Minnesota political deepfakes ban” www.twincities.com/2025/04/25/e...

Comments

studio8502.ca•31 days ago

Free speech, American style, isn't good. This has been proven over and over again.

Canadian style Freedom of Expression, that's good.

stealthisbook.bsky.social•31 days ago

Free speech maximalism gets a bit convoluted once terms like fraud and libel enter the discussion, moreso when property rights to things like copyright or likeness get involved

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

Either it’s just Good - as an inherent quality if the universe - or its goodness comes from the role it plays in the creation of a good society.

In the first case, one’s entitled to ask about cosmology, and not a lot of people take that road, so let’s have a quick look behind door number 2

2/n

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

Welcome to Consequentialism! You may know it from such hits as “the greatest good for the greatest number” or “the Trolley Problem”.

Basically: you measure the rightness of a choice by its consequences. Yes, there’s a lot to unpack.

3/n

vox-dei.bsky.social•31 days ago

Could get there other ways? If you start with "People should basically be allowed to do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt others" as an axiom, you can take in a lot of other places. One of which is free speech. You don't have to get into measuring goodness that way.

vox-dei.bsky.social•31 days ago

Should say, not a philosopher, nor a great reader of philosophy. I appreciate moral comparisons become necessary quite quickly. I just think you can get to "Free speech is good" via "Freedom is good" starting from empathy more easily than through consequentialism.

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

That gives you freedom - with a limit determined by a similarly tricky boundary around hurting others - but not moral value (although you’ve elevated freedom to the de facto position of ultimate good, which itself is a statement).

vox-dei.bsky.social•31 days ago

I didn't mean it was the *only* good thing, I'm a socialist not a libertarian!

I'm not dismissing consequentialism in general, useful for lots of things. I'm just fine with accepting "You shouldn't interfere with people needlessly" as axiomatically good. 😀

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

Me too :)

malacandra.me•31 days ago

: Karl Popper has entered the chat :

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

Briefly: you have to make some axiomatic decisions about what’s positive, then you have problems assigning values and comparing competing positives, another tranche of problems around negatives and whether they cancel out.

4/n

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

There’s some quite sneaky stuff around whether it’s good - for example - to do something vile which will have a positive impact; possibly “no because vile action as valid option damages society more than the positive outcome favours it”. But sometimes it can feel pretty thin. 5/n

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

Plus you have an issue with time frames - immediate consequences be longer term consequences - AND projected, hypothetical consequences vs known consequences.

BUT a surprising number of these actually can be given not unreasonable mathematical expressions. I’m told. 6/n

harkaway.bsky.social•31 days ago

Aaaaaanyway… all of this comes back to why free speech is so important. And what it comes down to is… “free speech is good because it is a necessary component in the creation of a functioning, tolerant, representative, free and just democracy” 7/n

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