what's the point of free speech I don't mean that as a skeptical question you know when some people ask what's the point of something they mean it as a skeptical question they say H with a gloomy face what's the point of living or um what's the point of worrying with a bright face I don't mean there's no point there is plenty of point to free speech so I don't mean my question what's the point of free speech to be expressing skepticism on the contrary there is plenty of point to free speech and what I want
to do today is talk about what that point is the thing is we often don't stop to think about what the point of free speech might be often we use the phrase Free Speech as a kind of Mantra a kind of magic spell to put an end to discussion oh but that would go against free speech and we end of discussion but free speech has a point and so I want to think about what its Point might be now I'm taking up that question as a philosopher I'm a philosopher I'm a professor of philosophy at
the University of Cambridge and I'm also at nunam college and as a philosopher well you know the jokes about philosophers um how many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb well it depends what you mean by change this works much better if you have a beard it always helps if you have a beard depends what you mean by change so when we're thinking of free speech and when we're asking what's the point of free speech it depends what you mean by speech sometimes when we think about speech we think about ideas we cast
ideas as the heroes of the story and we think of a Marketplace of ideas we think of this as this kind of vaguely darwinian uh battle battlefield of ideas and we hope that the truest and the strongest ideas are going to win out I think that's the wrong picture of course there are ideas but when we're thinking about speech we should be thinking first and foremost about people speech is about ordinary people having words and doing things with words what do we do with words we tell stories we argue we describe the world as we
see it we make promises we make bets we pray we bully we joke we swear we do all sorts of things with words and when I'm talking about speech I'm not talking about words as things that happen to have meaning I'm talking about doing things with words and this is a picture that comes from JL Austin a philosopher who was the founder of uh what's known as speech act Theory so when we're thinking about Free Speech or freedom of speech we are thinking about free freom of speech acts our freedom to do certain things with
words the first point about free speech that I want to uh talk about is knowledge the point of free speech is first of all knowledge that was an idea that uh JS Mill made very famous in his essay on Liberty we need freedom of opinion and expression of opinion because that's the best route to knowledge so we need to speak freely if we're going to speak our minds to each other we're going to learn about the world and about each other and crucially this is a crucial part of the knowledge learn about what our rulers
are up to learn about what the politicians are up to or as we say in Australia because I'm Australian as well as British as we say in Australia the point of free speech the point about freedom of the press in particular is to keep the bastards honest so if the point of free speech is knowledge that's one point the next point of free speech because I don't mean to say there is just a single point in fact there will be many other points to free speech that I'm not talking about today but the second point
to free speech is empowerment this means in part the political power to rule ourselves in a democracy our freedom as speakers as well as as hearers I was talking about our freedom as hearers to listen to the media and listen to each other but also our freedom as speakers to talk politics with each other also our freedom as speakers to say no or to say yes in those very special speech acts that we call voting so voting is a very special speech act where we say yes to the C to the candidate or the party
we like and no to the ones we don't like so it's a special speech Act of saying yes or no and it's one of the most important speech acts that we can perform in a uh democracy empowerment this second point of free speech also means a personal power to rule ourselves sometimes philosophers discuss this Under The Heading of autonomy self-rule this includes a sexual Freedom it includes our freedom as speakers to say no or yes our freedom as speakers to say no or yes in those special speech acts that we call refusal or consent and
by consent I have in mind active willing in enthusiastic consent so an important speech Act is the yes or the no that is an exercise of our our political speech act power um and another important uh freedom is our freedom to perform the yes and the no speech acts of our empowerment as sexual agents I said that the second one is a uh is about a personal empowerment it will come as no surprise and in fact I'm sure many in this room will share this uh view already that being personal can also be political so
in fact I believe that both of these speech act powers are thoroughly political powers and so when we're thinking about the point of free speech we have knowledge both as it involves political empowerment and as it involves our personal empowerment too Free Speech understood this way is not cheap speech Free Speech isn't sheep in fact it takes a lot because you can have your words and not be able to do what you mean with them and in fact it takes a lot to even have your words in the first place think about it um in
order to do things with words you need the words in the first place you need to have resources you need to have Concepts that are going to match your experience you need to have an education you need to have literacy if you're going to be able to read and write and so Free Speech actually takes a lot I say that because sometimes people think that free speech is just a matter of not having the government breathing down your shoulder uh it's not it takes a lot more than that it takes resources when you find someone
waxing eloquent on the topic of free speech it's worth stopping and asking them what are you doing to make speech real are the champions of free speech Just is interested in providing the resources that would make free speech real are they interested in providing education and literacy or are they just interested in this oh hands off I think we need a lot to make free speech real so I've been talking about speech as a kind of action a speech act and I want to talk now about how this perspective gives us another way to think
about silence maybe you're silent because you're frightened or intimidated or because when you say your words you don't perform the speech act that you meant to perform the philosopher Donald Davidson described an actor on a stage whose role in the play was to say I have to say this very quietly in this context fire I mean it look at the smoke so you can see why I have to say this quietly um then in the story uh he told a real fire breaks out and he's desperately trying to warn the audience and he says fire
I mean it look at the smoke but his words are not a warning so you need to be able to not only have your words but also do things with your words now I'm interested in how the speech acts of some people can silence the speech Acts of others by depriving their words of their Force by stopping those words being the speech acts that they were intended to be an obvious example with political speech would be speech that literally prevents someone from voting that would be a parte legislation where some people can't vote because of
who they are they can say the right words the right yes or no but it won't count as a vote now getting back to our other example of sexual speech uh sometimes a no might not count as a refusal and sometimes that might be because of the prevalence of the speech of others that is propagating uh myths about rape the myths might be when a woman says no she doesn't mean it or a woman who dresses like that is asking for trouble or a woman who is drunk or Blotto has uh no uh is simply
uh fair game so I want to ask whether speech that does that is fulfilling the point of free speech is it about knowledge is it about empowerment if it's not about knowledge and empowerment then whatever benefit it might have elsewhere it doesn't get a free spot a free pass when we're thinking about the point of free speech we can all do our bit to answer that sort of speech so that's the next thing I want to say is that um there is a huge amount that we can do to stop or interrupt the speech that
silences the speech of others and that's important from the point of view of free speech itself so I've been asking what is the point of free speech I've been saying it's knowledge it's empowerment both political and personal and how those are all mixed up you've also uh noticed probably that I'm speaking about this not only as a philosopher but as a feminist now back to our light bulb jokes how many feminists does it take to change a light bulb H it's not the light bulb that needs changing thank you what
