The Misleading Marketplace of Ideas: The Complicated Ethics of Free Speech

• In Event: Valuing and Defending against Speech

Abstract

In both scholarly and public discourse, “free speech” is generally discussed in terms of its priority. Critics contend that a rigid commitment to free speech ought to be deprioritized in favor some other principle (like equity, harm reduction, or democratic respect). Champions contend that societies ought to protect foundations of a liberal society by reaffirming their commitment to free speech, even in the face of detractors. This paper takes a different tack. Instead of exploring the proper extent and standing of free speech, I contend that free speech is actually a more complicated idea than is usually thought of, demanding different things from different people in different contexts. If free speech is often conceived (by both its critics and champions) as protecting a “marketplace of ideas”, then this paper seeks to draw attention to the messy nature of that marketplace. Just as different behavioral orientations are demanded by the institutional complexities of markets in order to realize economic efficiency, so too do the various speech environments of the public sphere impose different ethical obligations upon speakers and their audiences to realize free speech.

I begin by rehearsing Mill’s famous argument that free speech entails both a legal/constitutional prohibition of state efforts to silent speech and a social ethic – a “strong barrier of moral conviction” – amongst citizens mitigating the use of social sanction and ostracism to silence expression. If we take this latter point seriously, we see that this social ethos of free speech will manifest itself differently in different settings; what counts as legitimate speech-respecting criticism as opposed to speech-chilling ostracism will be different depending on organizational, community, and institutional context. We thus ought to think of the plural ethea of free speech –the way our obligations toward others in light of a shared social commitment to free expression will change given its refraction through the various organized settings of a complex and pluralist society. This is true regardless of how we prioritize free speech in relation to other principles.

The paper then discusses three aspects of a speech context that affect which sorts of locutions count as speech-respecting criticism or speech-chilling ostracism. These include (1) the proximate distribution of power within a context; (2) the existence of a goal or end that the speech context is rightly understood as pursuing; (3) and the existence of accepted idiosyncratic modes and standards of interaction within a particular speech context. Each of these features can turn what would otherwise be speech-respecting criticism into speech-chilling ostracism and vise versa. To illustrate this point, I consider several common examples of such responses including ad hominem criticism, deplatforming, devil’s advocacy, heckling, and insistence upon evidentiary burdens. In exploring these examples, I argue that many speech controversies aren’t about people putting appropriate or inappropriate weight on free speech, but rather confusion over what sorts of actions are appropriate with respect to free speech in particular contexts.

Ultimately, I conclude by arguing that the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas is, therefore, misleading. When we look at actual markets we see that they are full of non-market institutions –corporations, professional bodies, unions, etc. – where people interact with one another in explicitly cooperative ways. Political theorists have made many strides in articulating the different ethical standards that attach to commercial actors given the different roles they occupy in different contexts. This paper calls for a similar sort of subtlety in understanding free speech and the diverse ethical obligations it imposes upon speakers based on the roles and contexts they find themselves in.

Author

• Abraham A. Singer, Loyola University Chicago