The Experts below are selected from a list of 18600 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Richard Moon - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Social Character of Freedom of Expression
Amsterdam Law Forum, 2009Co-Authors: Richard MoonAbstract:Freedom of Expression protects the individual's Freedom to communicate with others. The right of the individual is to participate in an activity that is deeply social in character. The value of Freedom of Expression rests on the social nature of individuals and the constitutive character of public discourse. This understanding of the Freedom, however, has been inhibited by the individualism that dominates contemporary thinking about rights its assumptions about the pre-social individual and the instrumental value of community life. While the social character of human agency is seldom mentioned in the different accounts of the Freedom value, it is the unstated premise of each. Once we recognize that individual agency and identity emerge in the social relationship of communication, the traditional split between intrinsic and instrumental accounts (and between speaker and listener -based accounts) of the value of Freedom of Expression dissolves.
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the constitutional protection of Freedom of Expression
2000Co-Authors: Richard MoonAbstract:In this book, Richard Moon puts forward an account of Freedom of Expression that emphasizes its social character. Such Freedom does not simply protect individual liberty from state interference; it also protects the individual's Freedom to communicate with others. It is the right of the individual to communicate: an activity that is deeply social in character, and that involves socially created languages and the use of community resources, like parks, streets, and broadcast stations. Moon argues that recognition of the social dynamic of communication is critical to understanding the potential value and harm of language and to addressing questions about the scope and limits on one's rights to Freedom of Expression. Moon examines the tension between the demands for Freedom of Expression and the structure of constitutional adjudication in the Canadian context. The book discusses many of the standard Freedom of Expression issues, such as the regulation of advertising, election spending ceilings, the restriction of hate promotion and pornography, state compelled Expression, Freedom of the press, access to state and private property and state support for Expression. It examines several important Supreme Court of Canada decisions including Irwin Toy, Dolphin Delivery, RJR Macdonald, Keegstra and Butler.
Larry Alexander - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Freedom of Expression
Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 2020Co-Authors: Larry AlexanderAbstract:Freedom of Expression or speech is widely held to be both a moral right and a legal right. John Milton (1608–74) defended it in Britain in the seventeenth century, and the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights (1791) made it part of the First Amendment. Almost every modern constitution and international protocol regarding human rights recognizes Freedom of Expression. However, the justifications for and the contours of Freedom of speech are much mooted. Moreover, there are some, even in liberal democracies, who deny this Freedom special importance, whereas others deny its coherence as a concept.
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Is Freedom of Expression a Universal Right
2013Co-Authors: Larry AlexanderAbstract:In this piece I shall argue that although there is a core of shared understanding of what a right of Freedom of Expression must entail, I am doubtful that there is a nonconventional principle of Freedom of Expression that can justify that core or extensions beyond it. From my perspective, Freedom of Expression, if it is to be a right, must be justified instrumentally and elaborated by establishing conventions to demarcate its scope, conventions which will be most tenable if culturally and historically relative.
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Is There a Right of Freedom of Expression?: General Justifying Theories of Freedom of Expression
Is There a Right of Freedom of Expression?, 2005Co-Authors: Larry AlexanderAbstract:In the previous chapters we have taken a look at the variety of circumstances in which claims of Freedom of Expression might be invoked and at the variety of interests that government might be pursuing through the allegedly infringing law or governmental action. We have attempted to glean from those myriad cases some covering principle that might closely fit and justify our intuitions about those cases and yet remain faithful to the requirement of evaluative neutrality that must lie at the core of Freedom of Expression. Our attempts in this regard, however, have been unsuccessful. Again and again we have had to balance Freedom of Expression against harm to some other interest, and evaluative neutrality has forced us in every case to give Expression either overriding weight or zero weight in the balance, resulting in a right of Freedom of Expression that is either too strong or ineffectual. In this chapter we shall look at Freedom of Expression from the top down, so to speak, rather than from the bottom up. We shall look at various theories of Freedom of Expression that have been advanced and see whether any one of them is capable of nonarbitrarily supporting a human right without at the same time producing counterintuitive results. Consequentialist Theories of Freedom of Expression One family of theories attempts to justify a right of Freedom of Expression by pointing to various good consequences that such a right will bring about.
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is there a right of Freedom of Expression
2005Co-Authors: Larry AlexanderAbstract:In this book I offer a skeptical appraisal of the claim that Freedom of Expression is a human right. I examine the various contexts in which a right of Freedom of Expression might be asserted and conclude that such a right cannot be supported in any of these contexts. I argue that some legal protection of Freedom of Expression is surely valuable, though the form such protection will take will vary with historical and cultural circumstances and is not a matter of human right.
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Freedom of Expression as a Human Right
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001Co-Authors: Larry AlexanderAbstract:In this paper I shall focus on a right that, along with the right against arbitrary arrest and punishment, the right to a fair trial, the right not to be tortured or inhumanely punished, and the right of Freedom of religious belief, has perhaps the strongest claim for being a core human right, namely, the right of Freedom of Expression. But is there a right of Freedom of Expression? It is surely widely thought so. However, the grounds, scope, and force of such a right are vigorously contested. What activities does it apply to? (Does it protect specific activities, such as writing and speaking? Or does it protect any activity intended to communicate an idea? Alternatively, does it protect the receipt or formation of ideas from whatever source? Or is its focus neither the communication nor the receipt of ideas but rather the reasons behind those acts that are said to violate the right?) Whom does Freedom of Expression restrict (only government, or large private entities, or everyone)? Does it have an affirmative aspect to it, requiring government or others to expend resources to further it and protect it? And what institutional mechanisms are consistent with it? For example, if Freedom of Expression requires that government not preempt others' assessments of the importance of speech, then there cannot be a governmentally-enforced (judicially-enforced) free speech right that turns on assessments of the importance of speech. Finally, does Freedom of Expression have a secure philosophical underpinning? Or does it, like Freedom of religion, ultimately rest on the philosophically dubious idea of "epistemic abstinence"? If so, is it possible nonetheless to identify a core set of acts that can form the basis of a principled and administrable human right of Freedom of Expression.
Thomas Scanlon - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a theory of Freedom of Expression
Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2003Co-Authors: Thomas ScanlonAbstract:Persecution for the Expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care wholeheartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But … Oliver Wendell Holmes The doctrine of Freedom of Expression is generally thought to single out a class of “protected acts” which it holds to be immune from restrictions to which other acts are subject. In particular, on any very strong version of the doctrine there will be cases where protected acts are held to be immune from restriction despite the fact that they have as consequences harms which would normally be sufficient to justify the imposition of legal sanctions. It is the existence of such cases which makes Freedom of Expression a significant doctrine and which makes it appear, from a certain point of view, an irrational one. This feeling of irrationality is vividly portrayed by Justice Holmes in the passage quoted. To answer this charge of irrationality is the main task of a philosophical defense of Freedom of Expression.
Ole Rode Jensen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Nordic voices on Freedom of Expression - Nordic voices on Freedom of Expression
2017Co-Authors: Per Lundgren, Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, Ole Rode JensenAbstract:This booklet contains abstracts of 14 articles on Freedom of Expression written by both female and male debaters, journalists, writers, and academics. They speak about Freedom of Expression as seen from their Nordic perspective – whether they are from Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, or Åland. Nordic Voices on Freedom of Expression is a snapshot of the debate book “Den svåre yttrandefriheten – nordiska röster” produced by the Nordic Journalist Centre for the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2017. Enjoy the debate
David O Brink - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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mill s liberal principles and Freedom of Expression
2007Co-Authors: David O BrinkAbstract:John Stuart Mill's defense of Freedom of Expression has proved extremely influential and finds important echoes in First Amendment jurisprudence. Though important in its own right, Mill's defense of Freedom of Expression also plays an important, though sometimes overlooked, role in his more general defense of individual liberties. Mill turns to Freedom of Expression in the belief that there is general agreement on the importance of Freedom of Expression and that, once the grounds for expressive liberties are understood, this agreement can be exploited to support a more general defense of individual liberties. This means that a proper understanding of the significance of Mill's defense of Freedom of Expression requires not only reconstructing his arguments on behalf of expressive liberties and exploring their bearing on issues of Freedom of Expression but also seeing how these arguments generalize to other kinds of liberties. In this regard, it is especially instructive to consider how his claims about Freedom of Expression inform his liberal principles, especially what his discussion of the best grounds for expressive liberties can tell us about the best grounds for opposing paternalism. But it is also worth exploring whether philosophical pressure runs in the other direction as well - whether Mill's discussions of liberalism, in general, and paternalism, in particular, have implications for the proper articulation of principles governing expressive liberties. This perspective requires viewing Mill's defense of Freedom of Expression in the context of his liberalism.
