Speech Matters by Shiffrin Seana Valentine

Author:Shiffrin, Seana Valentine [Shiffrin, Seana Valentine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

Lying and Freedom of Speech

In Chapter One, I argued that a lie is an assertion that the speaker knows she does not believe, but nevertheless deliberately asserts, in a context that, objectively interpreted, represents that assertion as to be taken by the listener as true and as believed by the speaker. Given that understanding, I argued that the primary, distinctive wrong of lies as such does not inhere in their deceptive effect, if any, on listeners, but instead in their abuse of the mechanism by which we provide reliable testimonial warrants, a mechanism we must safeguard if we are to understand and cooperate with one another and to achieve our mandatory moral ends. Of course, many lies also cause or attempt wrongful deception, by violating the speaker’s duty of care toward the listener not to cause or risk the formation (or confirmation) in her of a false belief. On many occasions, when lies are deceptive, the deceptive components may reasonably represent the most salient part of the wrong done to their victims. But, what I call “pure lies” need not involve deception or the intent to deceive. They need not even be false; a speaker may lie by asserting what she believes to be false yet, unbeknownst to her, happens to be true.1 Yet pure lies, like deceptive lies, abuse the mechanism of direct communication and threaten the basis of our testimonial trust with one another.

In Chapter Three, I argued that similar considerations about the significance of speech to our personal intellectual development and to our moral agency undergird the view that legal regimes must offer strong protections for individual freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is an essential social condition for the development, maintenance, and full value of freedom of thought, and for the full and proper exercise of our moral faculties. For these reasons, I argued that freedom of speech is a fundamental human right and an indispensable precondition of a just social and political scheme.

Together, these two positions—the strong condemnation of lies as such and the derivation of freedom of speech from similar argumentative foundations—prompt questions about the legal regulation of lies. Does a strong commitment to freedom of speech preclude regulation of lies as such, as many have thought? Prima facie, the philosophical case I have sketched for freedom of speech suggests, to the contrary, that freedom of speech may not extend to deliberate misrepresentations of the speakers’ beliefs. That case stresses the significance of opportunities to speak and hear sincere speech (as well as speech transparently used to pursue our other nontestimonial uses of communication). Deliberately insincere speech should not garner the same sort of respect because it does not participate, even at the fringe, in the same values as sincere or transparent speech. Moreover, if deliberate misrepresentations undercut the warrants we have to accept each other’s testimonial speech, then we have reason to think that deliberate misrepresentations interfere with the aims of free speech culture.2 They not only demonstrate a culpable indifference to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.