
Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion (1869) - Pete_D
http://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html
======
andai
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of
the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one
person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing
mankind.”

~~~
KirinDave
Is the intent of this comment to suggest that people are being silenced for
contentious opinions and that is bad?

Or that it is a slippery slope to that condition?

~~~
conanbatt
That numbers is not a justification for silencing dissent.

~~~
twobyfour
This is the key point. UNPOPULARITY isn't a good reason for an opinion to be
silenced. That' a very different stance from saying that HARM isn't a good
reason for an opinion to be silenced.

~~~
KirinDave
Well, I submit that by this very statement: the natural social effects we
define as "unpopular" cannot then be used to suggest "silencing".

As many people have pointed out, it's actually vanishingly rare for people to
get punished for unpopular opinions. In general you only get there if you are
sincerely promoting genocide (e.g., Spencer), suggesting that not all humans
are fit for freedom. (e.g., Moldbug), or that existing cohorts of people who
very clearly were offered fair standards of grading are inferior (as Damore
did even though he can't seem to come to terms with the real implications of
what he wrote).

And these are "opinions" many people have and never get any sort of actual
punishment or damage to themselves so long as they don't bring it into
professional or policy environments where we have agreed it leads to
discriminatory practices.

It's interesting how the rhetoric about "liberal feels" is so strong online
when it's only said "feels" that make most people feel oppressed anyways.

------
printf_kek0

      He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little
      of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been
      able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute
      the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as
      know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either
      opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension
      of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, 
      he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality
      of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.
    

I think this is highly relevant considering the times we live in (identity
politics, nationalism, feminism, polarization of opinions and beliefs).

~~~
emacsgifs
Please edit your comment to correctly show as a quote and not as
plaintext/monospaced

------
solidsnack9000
_There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true,
because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted,
and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very
condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and
on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance
of being right._

This is a pretty solid argument for freedom of speech in the sense in which it
is generally protected: as something that contributes to public dialogue in
politics, the sciences and the arts.

Many things seem to be this but aren’t. Hate speech is not an opinion in this
sense: it is not something presented as an argument or topic for discussion.
You are either with the haters, or you are against them. Whether something is
political speech or not depends very much on how it is offered to the public.
The same idea — memory safety is a recent, innocuous example from this forum —
can be a rallying cry for some and a point of discussion for others.

~~~
printf_kek0
> Hate speech is not an opinion in this sense: it is not something presented
> as an argument or topic for discussion.

According to J.S. Mill, free speech should only be constrained to the extent
that it violates what he calls the _harm principle_ :

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member
of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

He makes a distinction between causing harm and causing offense. Revulsion,
disgust, psychologically upsetting speech, discriminatory speech, insults and
so forth fall under the latter category. Free speech which merely causes
offense should not be prohibited according to Mill however controversial or
contrary to social norms such speech is.

But how strong the definition of the "harm principle" should be is subject to
debate.

Contrast for instance, screaming "Fire!!" in a theater - which might cause
injury and death from a crowd stampede - with "All <insert_ethnic_group> are
inherently inferior to <insert_other_ethnic_group>".

The difference between causing harm and offense is that harm is universally
injurious, whereas as what causes offense is only experienced subjectively.

Although I find blatant _hate speech_ detestable, there is a worrying trend
where a majority of people consider hate speech to mean "anything that _we_
disagree with". In our times, it is difficult to speak frankly or be a
contrarian without being demonized. And this is precisely what J.S. Mill calls
"tyranny of the majority" and consequentially what leads to loss of
individuality in society.

~~~
dvanduzer
It is not difficult to discern whether a candidate for hate speech violates
Mill's _harm principle_. Speech of the form

    
    
        "All <insert_ethnic_group> are inherently inferior to <insert_other_ethnic_group>"
    

does not exist in a vacuum without any corresponding systemic / institutional
problem. I think you're saying speech like that merely causes offense, and not
harm, which gives me the general impression that you are arguing in bad faith.

~~~
austincheney
> I think you're saying speech like that merely causes offense, and not harm,
> which gives me the general impression that you are arguing in bad faith.

It seems you understand the correct answer in accordance with Mill, but then
willfully choose to ignore that answer since it differs with your personal
value system.

To be very direct, hate speech does not violate the _harm principle_ in the
same immediacy or capacity as does yelling FIRE! in a crowded theater.

~~~
yesenadam
Well, no, it certainly might, in some circumstances. Just as yelling "FIRE!"
in some circumstances might - e.g. yelling something virulently racist while
standing between two ethnic groups heatedly confronting each other in the
street.

~~~
austincheney
That is an invalid comparison. There is a world of difference between panic
and anger.

~~~
yesenadam
Well, evidently I don't think it's invalid. Just asserting that doesn't
achieve much. I haven't given this a great deal of thought, but it seems the
specific emotions are so far irrelevant; what is relevant is whether an action
causes harm, or may be predicted to do so/usually does so.

~~~
austincheney
> Well, evidently I don't think it's invalid.

Fortunately, courts in the US do not have trouble discerning this difference.

~~~
yesenadam
Maybe if you made your points on here without seeming offensively snarky in
your every sentence, you might have more success. "Don't be snarky."

------
Alex3917
Is there any good argument against this JSM piece? I've heard folks say that
he was just one philosopher and other philosophers thought differently, but
I've yet to hear an argument against this that I've found compelling.

~~~
yesenadam
Well, this 'piece' is one chapter of _On Liberty_ (1859). There's a David
Stove essay _The Columbus Argument_ [0] (1987) - as always, funny, pungent and
well-reasoned - reprinted in his book _On Enlightenment_ , which is full of
other taking-the-unfashionable-side-of-the-argument essays. Stove there calls
(Virginia Woolf's uncle) J.F. Stephen's _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_ [1]
(1873) the 'best reply' to Mill.

[0] [https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-columbus-
arg...](https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-columbus-argument/)

[1]
[https://archive.org/details/libertyequality00stepgoog](https://archive.org/details/libertyequality00stepgoog)

~~~
dvanduzer
Thanks, it was a very interesting journey reading over some of this.

Stephen faults Mill's logic in talking about a turning point for pre-civil
societies. "Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an
Akbar or a Charlemagne if they are so fortunate as to find one." But Stephen
makes it pretty clear that he disagrees with every word of Mill's _Subjection
of Women_. Page 217 where he articulates his belief that wives should defer to
husbands in _all_ family questions, like a lieutenant to the captain of the
ship...

Stephen was writing 3 years after ratification of the 15th Amendment, and 47
years before ratification of the 19th Amendment. From 2017, it might not be
clear what David Stove writing for Commentary in 1987 thought of as an
unfashionable side of an argument, but... Stephen makes it pretty clear that
his core disagreement with Mill, is about equality for women. (And what that
meant in 1873.)

~~~
yesenadam
Welcome. :-) Another thing.. "3 years after ratification of the 15th
Amendment" .. I guess you mean something in the US? I'm not in the USA, Mill
wasnt in the US, no-one in the parents of this mentioned the US - why
assume..well, not sure what you're assuming, but the talking as if this
conversation, topic, site and its users exist entirely in the US seems rather
..strange. It's not just you. Someone else on this very page did the same
thing with me today, but in a very snarky way. Maybe this chapter was posted
because of something happening in the US, so people in the US are just
thinking of their own scene; I don't know.

~~~
dvanduzer
You're right, my apologies. I frequently forget that I am not always writing
from middle America to San Francisco on this website. I'll try to keep my
blinders in check.

This chapter was almost certainly posted in the context of Sam Altman's recent
blog post[0], which itself echoes an essay Paul Graham wrote a decade or so
ago.[1] But there's a more immediate connection between Sam Altman's essay and
the essay James Damore circulated at Google.

I was very interested in reading Stephen's "contemporary conservative"
reaction to Mill, and wanted to place it within the timeline of human culture
that I could understand: just a few years after the abolition of slavery and
recognition of voting rights for black men in the United States, but a couple
of generations before voting rights for women.

So, Altman is writing about unpopular opinions a few months after Damore is
fired from Google for circulating a set of opinions, emphasizing that men and
women are fundamentally different. A century and a half ago, J.F. Stephen's
most substantial disagreement with J.S. Mill's treatise on liberty is...
Mill's advocacy to fundamentally alter society to treat men and women equally
in the name of justice.

Despite what Professor Stove said in 1987, Mill's opinion was the unpopular
one in 1873.

[0] [http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-
muove](http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove)

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

~~~
yesenadam
Oh thank you!, I'm glad I complained. :-) "I am not always writing from middle
America to San Francisco on this website" hehe - though maybe usually, it's
understandable.

Yeah, I know that PG essay well - I'm a huge fan of his essays (especially the
non-startup/programming ones).

Ohh of course - someone else tried to explain for the (U.S.) users why 1869
was so different from 1859 - I must remember tech people mostly live in the
21st C hehe. I seem to have more favourite writers from the 19th C than any
other century, and have spent a lot of time living there and getting to know
it (e.g. Hazlitt, Emerson, Ruskin, Nietzsche, Wilde, Stevenson, W James,
Kierkegaard, Thoreau)

I'll have to read Stephen's book again, I read it about 25 years ago. Also,
Mill worshipped his wife. I mean _really_ worshipped her. Some of the things
he said about her were pretty over-the-top, even for someone madly in love.
From memory, didn't they co-write _On Liberty_? Maybe he got all his
'advanced' ideas from her. His _Autobiography_ is fascinating.

Also, speaking of treatment of women, I can't read about 'experiments in
living' without recalling the horrific chapter on Shelley in Paul Johnson's
_Intellectuals_.

------
dvanduzer
The most interesting historical tidbit I learned from reading this essay, is
that when you are playing _devil 's advocate_, you are implying the person you
are arguing with has been nominated for sainthood.

~~~
bmh_ca
The devils advocate is literally a Catholic position occupied by a person
arguing against conferring sainthood.

The interesting bit is that historically the strength of sainthood has been
tied to the conviction of the advocate for the devil, not the quality of the
advocate for the saint.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Interesting. TIL

------
yesenadam
(1859) - _On Liberty_ (of which this is a chapter) was published 1859, not
1869.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Which, if any readers not from the US are wondering makes a very big
difference because of the events of those 10yr.

------
acabal
Shameless plug: anyone interested in reading _On Liberty_ on their ereader
should check out our free edition at Standard Ebooks:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-stuart-mill/on-
libert...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty)

It's an excellent read, and is the foundation of a lot of quotes on philosophy
of government that Americans will be familiar with, but perhaps unsure of the
source. A really foundational book.

~~~
scoggs
Thanks, I came to the comments looking for something like this. Much
appreciated.

------
announcerman
Diversity of thought will always trump any other type of diversity.

