"Where Should Speech be Free? Conceiving Liberal Theories of Free Speech"

AUTHOR
Richard Danbury
YEAR
2017
ANNOTATION

Danbury explores the frequent tension between the statutory universality of human rights, in this case free speech on one hand, and the challenges to such assertions on cultural grounds on the other. Danbury points to four reasons that free speech should be universal: 1) discussions about free speech and related questions in liberal democracies that frequently invoke references to democracy and the values of liberalism can lead to a relativist assumption that liberal arguments that defend free speech are more limited than is appropriate; 2) placing liberal theories of free speech in a wider context draws attention to the fact that arguments that exist for free speech can be severed from debates about wider aspects of political philosophy; 3) the fact that the free-speech theories described can be somewhat disengaged from their political context is of importance in a world of Internet communication where, given the prevalence, immediacy, and internationality of such communication, questions of the relativity of freedom of speech become acute; and 4) free speech theories provide an approach that can be overlooked to resolving dilemmas related to speech within liberal democracies.

OPEN ACCESS
Off
LANGUAGE
English
RESOURCE TYPE
LINKED CONTENT AREA
MEDIA TYPE
SUGGESTED CITATION

Danbury, R. (2017). Where Should Speech Be Free? Placing Liberal Theories of Free Speech in a Wider Context. In M. Price & N. Stremlau (Eds.), Speech and Society in Turbulent Times: Freedom of Expression in Comparative Perspective (pp. 171-191). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316996850.011