Under what circumstances is the state justified in restricting what we can say?
Aidan L
On 23 February 2019, Pastor Ilesanmi preached the Bible outside Southgate Tube Station. The Metropolitan Police arrested him for ‘breach of the peace’. But what was the offence? Was it what he said, what he was intending by saying it, or the effect on others? These are three distinct acts, and most debates about speech restrictions fail to distinguish between them. Philosopher J.L. Austin illustrates the differences in his Speech Act theory: a locutionary act is the literal content spoken; an illocutionary act is what the speaker intends in saying it; a perlocutionary act is the effect produced. For instance, the locution ‘there is a fire in the building’ shouted in a crowded theatre has an illocutionary act of a warning. If people trample, that is the perlocutionary effect. Here is the position I would defend: the state is never justified in restricting ideas, always justified in restricting harmful intents and acts committed through language, and should be deeply cautious about policing effects. Failing to do so leads either to over-reach, silencing legitimate expression in the name of protection, or to paralysis, leaving harmful speech unchecked. Should the state ever be allowed to ban a proposition? It should not. Mill argues that the free exchange of ideas, even false ones, is necessary to prevent intellectual stagnation. If propositions are restricted, certain ideas become inexpressible, directly harming the gains in knowledge goods Mill identifies. Suppose one objects that Mill is naïve about disinformation. The false claim that the UK sent £350 million a week to the EU overwhelmed Brexit discourse and was amplified by tens of thousands of bot accounts. Though the IFS debunked it, polling showed voters believed it regardless. Mill’s notion that truth triumphs in the marketplace of ideas seems to have failed here. However, Mill’s corrective mechanism failed because of perlocutionary, not locutionary, acts. The proposition itself is straightforwardly falsifiable. The harm arose from the algorithms and fake accounts, reaching voters who would never encounter the rebuttal. The locution was identical in every instance; what changed was the perlocutionary apparatus surrounding it, meaning that restricting the proposition would still leave that apparatus intact. Moreover, as Kant describes, restricting propositions supposes citizens incapable of rational judgement, undermining the autonomy democratic participation requires. Tragically, states empowered to restrict locutionary acts invariably suppress claims that threaten their legitimacy. As history shows, blasphemy laws are turned against dissidents; sedition statutes are applied to journalists. The state should never restrict speech based on its locutionary content. The case is different for illocutionary acts – harmful things done through language. When someone shouts a racial slur, the damage is not downstream but is done in the utterance itself. The word does not describe a prejudice; it enacts one, subordinating a rational agent on the basis of identity (what Kant frames as a violation of dignity). When an utterance constitutes a threat, a fraud, or an order to commit violence, the state is restricting an act, not an idea, fulfilling its duty to protect citizens.
145
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting