Thank you for writing this-- an interesting review, and I appreciate you making a clear argument.
I think the position you take may point in a more libertarian direction than you acknowledge (and I don't say that as a criticism but as a recognition of the power of the argument). If, as you say there is always a risk of error or malice when making decisions about, "we will burden one person or group for the benefit of a larger group" that caution would apply in many cases.
But I don't know that I can propose any principle more specific than, "it is good to be wary about the potential for abuse and I also want a state that is empowered to pursue the 'common good' in various ways."
Yes, I just mean that the arguments you make for free speech could also apply, for example, to freedom of contract -- which is I think a right but one for which I am less sympathetic to an expansive definition.
Yes, and there are genuine theoretical and practical problems with deciding what counts as "common good" and, nevertheless, I think it's better to attempt to promote the common good and struggle with the challenges than not.
Lurking behind every argument like Dabhoiwala’s is the question of who will arbitrate the "balance" he advocates. The answer, invariably, is someone like Dabhoiwala - learned, reasonable, and utterly blind to his capacity for autocracy and evil. The state of free speech in his native England is horrifying and worsening exactly because the police are pursuing partisan objectives under the guise of enforcing public order. They passed a law in 2003 banning speech intended to "cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another," and now thousands upon thousands of people have been arrested for discomfiting progressive sensibilities on various social media platforms.
Free speech is not great at his current employer, Princeton, either. Just ask his erstwhile colleague Joshua Katz.
The most compelling argument against such restrictions is not "Our enemies will do something bad with this power," but "We will do something bad with this power." It's no accident that neither Dabhoiwala nor anyone else of that ilk is making that argument.
Exactly this--it is the fundamental move at the core of liberalism, that rights must be granted within reason, or indexed against reasonable limits, and when you ask for an external description of what "reason" amounts to, they always punt--"reason" is in the subjectivity of a reasonable subject. Who is a reasonable subject? Always the person asserting that there must be limits, who is also then a person who at that moment stands outside of history and society and doesn't have to give any accounting of their priors or interests.
There is an old line, "you can't take the politics out of politics" meaning both that you can't get away from the need to persuade people and also that you can't get away from real contests over power and authority. There is no ideal world in which everything runs smoothly and there's no disagreement.
Similarly you can't get away from the need to decide, "how do the general principles apply in this specific case -- particularly a case in which two or more principles conflict." Currently that decision is frequently made by the courts. Which are highlight inefficient but are, in fact set up to make that decision.
(Side note, on book that influenced my thinking is _Governing with Judges_ by Alex Stone Sweet which argues that outside of the US questions of constitutional law are more likely to be thought of as balancing tests rather than applying absolute rights)
So the challenge that anyone trying to advocate for "reasonably limits" should take on is, "can I propose something which would function better than having the courts adjudicate the question?" It doesn't mean that they need to have a system which will resolve any question perfectly but, ideally, you would like to be able to resolve some set of questions quickly and easily AND be able to identify which something falls outside of the range of easily resolvable questions.
Doing that doesn't demand a perspective standing "outside of history and society"
Thank you for writing this-- an interesting review, and I appreciate you making a clear argument.
I think the position you take may point in a more libertarian direction than you acknowledge (and I don't say that as a criticism but as a recognition of the power of the argument). If, as you say there is always a risk of error or malice when making decisions about, "we will burden one person or group for the benefit of a larger group" that caution would apply in many cases.
But I don't know that I can propose any principle more specific than, "it is good to be wary about the potential for abuse and I also want a state that is empowered to pursue the 'common good' in various ways."
Hence the Russell quote - a “balanced” approach must be, well, balanced in considering rights that exist independently of a utilitarian justification
Yes, I just mean that the arguments you make for free speech could also apply, for example, to freedom of contract -- which is I think a right but one for which I am less sympathetic to an expansive definition.
But then you have to have a concept of the "common good" that the state is empowered to pursue.
Yes, and there are genuine theoretical and practical problems with deciding what counts as "common good" and, nevertheless, I think it's better to attempt to promote the common good and struggle with the challenges than not.
Lurking behind every argument like Dabhoiwala’s is the question of who will arbitrate the "balance" he advocates. The answer, invariably, is someone like Dabhoiwala - learned, reasonable, and utterly blind to his capacity for autocracy and evil. The state of free speech in his native England is horrifying and worsening exactly because the police are pursuing partisan objectives under the guise of enforcing public order. They passed a law in 2003 banning speech intended to "cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another," and now thousands upon thousands of people have been arrested for discomfiting progressive sensibilities on various social media platforms.
Free speech is not great at his current employer, Princeton, either. Just ask his erstwhile colleague Joshua Katz.
The most compelling argument against such restrictions is not "Our enemies will do something bad with this power," but "We will do something bad with this power." It's no accident that neither Dabhoiwala nor anyone else of that ilk is making that argument.
Exactly this--it is the fundamental move at the core of liberalism, that rights must be granted within reason, or indexed against reasonable limits, and when you ask for an external description of what "reason" amounts to, they always punt--"reason" is in the subjectivity of a reasonable subject. Who is a reasonable subject? Always the person asserting that there must be limits, who is also then a person who at that moment stands outside of history and society and doesn't have to give any accounting of their priors or interests.
On the other hand . . .
There is an old line, "you can't take the politics out of politics" meaning both that you can't get away from the need to persuade people and also that you can't get away from real contests over power and authority. There is no ideal world in which everything runs smoothly and there's no disagreement.
Similarly you can't get away from the need to decide, "how do the general principles apply in this specific case -- particularly a case in which two or more principles conflict." Currently that decision is frequently made by the courts. Which are highlight inefficient but are, in fact set up to make that decision.
(Side note, on book that influenced my thinking is _Governing with Judges_ by Alex Stone Sweet which argues that outside of the US questions of constitutional law are more likely to be thought of as balancing tests rather than applying absolute rights)
So the challenge that anyone trying to advocate for "reasonably limits" should take on is, "can I propose something which would function better than having the courts adjudicate the question?" It doesn't mean that they need to have a system which will resolve any question perfectly but, ideally, you would like to be able to resolve some set of questions quickly and easily AND be able to identify which something falls outside of the range of easily resolvable questions.
Doing that doesn't demand a perspective standing "outside of history and society"
It doesn't demand it, but many of the people claiming that kind of authority allocate that perspective to themselves.