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Should free speech be curbed to promote a more inclusive society?

Once, upon being asked to name the most beautiful of all things, Diogenes the Cynic (d. 323  BCE) replied parrhesia, which in Greek means something like “free speech” or “full expression”. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) says that parrhesia is a trait of the magnanimous or great-souled man, the megalopsychos. The Greeks did not conceive of parrhesia as a right or privilege, but as a virtue or perfection, as well as a moral and social obligation. Living in a much more oral society, and having but one word, logos, for both speech and reason, they understood the close connexion between freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

In Athens, parrhesia underpinned the democracy. For a democracy to flourish, or even merit the name, citizens must be free, able, and willing to speak their mind. Free speech not only enables a democracy, but also legitimizes its laws and protects it from aspiring tyrants. Undermine free speech, and you undermine democracy—which is why free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Undermine free speech, and you undermine human dignity, which is why free speech is enshrined in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to see, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

“Free speech” is something of a misnomer. It includes not only free speech but also other forms of expression, such as writing a book, drawing a cartoon, or burning a flag. Taking inspiration from the French libre expression, we might more accurately refer to “free speech” as “freedom of expression”.

Today, many people, especially younger people, believe that freedom of expression can conflict with minority rights, and ought to be curbed to promote a more inclusive society. Is this argument worth entertaining?

Let’s begin by looking more closely at the benefits of free speech. Often, it is by articulating it to others that we are able to determine what we think on a particular issue. And in arriving at what we think, it helps if we are being encouraged, assisted, and challenged—which is why tutorials and communal meals are (or ought to be) an important part of university life.

Even if an opinion is untrue, it may still serve to clarify or reinforce the truth. Moreover, many misguided opinions contain aspects of the truth. Plato himself doubted his Theory of Forms, which nonetheless remains of immense value. Rousseau, who pushed back against the Enlightenment, may have been wrong to idealise the state of nature, but was right to point out that progress has downsides. Even when securely established, a living truth risks stultifying into a dead dogma if it is not regularly challenged.

So far, we have been talking about the kind of constructive, co-operative discourse that graces academia. But are bitter bigots also entitled to freedom of expression? Or to put it another way, do the intolerant also merit tolerance?

If bigots were unable to air their opinions, or simply denied a platform (“no-platforming”), these and they would go unchallenged. Feeling vindicated and persecuted, the bigots would recast themselves as tellers of uncomfortable truths, and, in time, recruit a following. Feeling unheard and unrepresented, this growing mass may resort to violence and destruction, including sabotage of the political system.

Censoring bigots also risks giving their opinions greater appeal and publicity. Prosecuting David Irving for Holocaust denial put him onto the front pages, and turned him from obscure and discredited historian into something of a free speech martyr. Banning The Satanic Verses and issuing a fatwa to kill the book’s author and publishers turned it into a must-read all-time classic.

Conversely, those who engage in “cancel culture” are likely to invite resentment and, in so doing, harm their cause—to say nothing of the extra-judicial and often disproportionate damage done to the reputations and careers of their targets. In such a climate of fear, self-censorship, even by constructive academics and liberals, makes it difficult to calmly and rationally discuss sensitive topics such as transgender rights.

Of course, we do already police free speech. In the words of Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., free speech does not include the freedom of shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. John Stuart Mill (d. 1873) drew the line at incitement to physical violence.

But beyond this (and a few other cases such as libel and false advertising), where might we redraw the line between the acceptable and the unacceptable? Socrates, Christ, and Giordano Bruno all lost their lives expressing what came to be regarded as seminal ideas.

Once we had redrawn the line, would the temptation not be to keep redrawing it? The Spanish Inquisition began as one thing and ended up as quite another. And it made no difference if some of the inquisitors were well-intentioned.

Today, the public square has moved online, and it is unaccountable tech giants, rather than the church and state, that are being expected to police free speech—when they might simply begin by ensuring that each of their accounts is genuine and accountable.

As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The best response to a bad opinion is not censorship, but good argument and rhetoric. And yes, this might sometimes include mockery and derision and causing offence—although we should not go out of our way to cause offence, as with “hate speech”. Our focus ought to be on the facts, and not on the characteristics (although maybe the character) of our opponent.

In a society in which suffering is medicalized, there is a tendency to assimilate psychological offence with physical violence, with an implication or suggestion that retaliatory physical violence might be justified. But “free speech” includes the right not to listen. Taking offence, as the Stoics taught, is always a choice. Offence exists not in the insult but in our reaction to it, and our reactions are completely within our control. It is unreasonable to expect a boor to be anything but a boor; if we take offence at his bad behaviour, we have only ourself to blame.

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Plato’s Forms are at the root of Western psychology, philosophy, and theology.

In the Genealogy of Morality (1887), Nietzsche calls Plato ‘the sincerest advocate of the beyond, the great slanderer of life.’

The dichotomy between truth and appearance, and the devaluation of appearance, is rooted in pre-Socratic philosophy. Just as Plato leant upon Heraclitus’ flux for his conception of the sensible world of appearance (the world as we see it), so he leant upon Parmenides’ unity for his conception of the intelligible world (the world when we think it), which he rendered as the ideal, immutable realm of the Forms.

The Genesis of the Forms

Plato’s authorship spanned some fifty years, from the death of Socrates in 399 BCE to his own death in c. 348. He is traditionally ascribed with 35 dialogues, although around ten of these are or may be spurious. Today, the dialogues are often classified into three periods, ‘early’, ‘middle’, and ‘late’, based on their presumed order of composition.

The early dialogues are relatively short and accessible. They are sometimes referred to as the Socratic dialogues because they set forth more of the historical Socrates, typically debating ethical subjects such as temperance, courage, or friendship with youths, friends, or a supposed expert.

From these beginnings, Plato gradually developed distinct philosophical ideas, such as his Theory of Forms, which features in middle dialogues such as the Phaedo, Symposium, and Republic. In these long, literary dialogues, the character Socrates is less of the historical Socrates and more of a mouthpiece for Plato. He is accordingly more didactic, putting forth positive doctrines and no longer content merely to question and refute. Other middle dialogue doctrines that are unlikely to owe to Socrates include the Theory of Recollection, the Theory of Reincarnation, and the Theory of the Tripartite Soul—which are each connected to the Forms.

The FORMS IN THE Phaedo

The Phaedo is named for the young Phaedo of Ellis, whom Socrates had rescued from slavery. For the first time, Plato explicitly appeals to the Forms, although does not do much to explain them. He also assumes reader familiarity with the Meno and the Theory of Recollection, which the Phaedo builds upon.

In the Phaedo, which used to be called On the Soul, Socrates offers four arguments for the immortality of the soul, among which the Theory of Recollection and the Theory of Forms. The supposed immortality of the soul enables Socrates to remain sanguine in the face of his pending execution, and offers the ultimate justification for the life of virtue. The dialogue ends with a myth of the afterlife and, of course, the dramatic drinking of the hemlock.

Socrates argues that that which is compounded is dissoluble, but that which is uncompounded is indissoluble and therefore unchanging. The Forms (for instance, Beauty), which are unchanging, are uncompounded, but their particulars (for instance, a beautiful horse), which are in a constant state of composition and degradation, are compounded. Particulars are apprehended by the senses, but the Forms can only be apprehended by the mind. Since the soul cannot be apprehended by the senses, it must be immortal.

The embodied soul employs the body as an instrument of perception, but what the body perceives is in a perpetual state of flux, so that the soul is thrown into confusion. But when the soul is once again detached from the body, or when it turns inward to contemplate itself, it passes into the realm of the unchanging and approaches wisdom.

Upon death, not all souls suffer the same fate. The soul of the philosopher, being the most detached from the body, is able to reach the realm of the unchanging, where it ‘lives in bliss and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills…’ But unphilosophical souls, which have been weighed down by worldly cares and bodily desires, remain earthbound and pass into another body.

Socrates affirms that the Theory of Forms is the most plausible theory of the deep causes of things. On this account, something is beautiful because it participates in the Form of Beauty, two is two because it participates in the Form of Duality, and so on. A thing that participates in a Form also participates in other closely connected Forms. For instance, three bundled pencils participate in the Form of Oddness as well as the Form of Threeness. However, opposite Forms such as Even and Odd cannot admit of each other. Whenever a soul is embodied, there is invariably life, indicating that the soul is closely connected with life, and thus that it cannot admit of its opposite, death.

The Symposium: Love as the engine of wisdom

In the Symposium, Socrates relates the time when the priestess Diotima taught him the proper way to learn to love beauty. A youth should first be taught to love one beautiful body so that he comes to realize that this beautiful body shares beauty with every other beautiful body, and thus that it is foolish to love just one beautiful body. In loving all beautiful bodies, the youth begins to appreciate that the beauty of the soul is superior to the beauty of the body and begins to love those who are beautiful in soul regardless of whether they are also beautiful in body. Having transcended the physical, he gradually finds that beautiful practices and customs and the various branches of knowledge also share in a common beauty. Finally, on the highest rung of the ladder of love, he is able to experience Beauty itself, rather than its various apparitions. By exchanging the various apparitions of virtue for Virtue herself, he gains immortality and the love of the gods.

The Republic: The Form of the Good

In Book 5 of the Republic, in discussing the ideal state and the education of its guardians, Plato introduces the elusive Form of the Good. It is by attaining the Form of the Good that the philosopher-king is made fit to rule. As the Form of the Good is impossible to describe, and difficult to imagine, Socrates tries to convey its essence through three interconnected metaphors: the famous sun, line, and cave, which I discuss in a separate article.

LEGACY of the Forms

In the Phaedo, the Theory of Forms is presented as ‘the most plausible theory’, without any backing or questioning. In later dialogues, Plato becomes more doubtful—and in the Parmenides, has Parmenides demolish his pet Theory of Forms.

Arresting though it may be, the Theory of Forms is never definitive, and features less prominently in the late dialogues. Part of the pleasure and privilege, and seduction, of reading Plato is that he is thinking with us, rather than simply telling us what he thinks, or what to think.

In any case, our main interest in the Theory of Forms is not in its logic or coherence, but in its impact and influence. The Phaedo entrenched most of the divisions or dualities that mark the Western mind, including soul and body, mind and matter, reason and sense experience, reason and emotion, reality and appearance, good and evil, heaven and hell… In the Western tradition, since the Phaedo, the body is the source of all evil. But in the Eastern tradition, for instance, in yoga, we can take control of the mind through the body.

Although the Phaedo is at the root of Western psychology, philosophy, and theology, it is also deeply Eastern in advocating supreme detachment and ego suppression or disintegration as the route to salvation. Also, death is an illusion … we will be reincarnated … according to our deeds (karma). These, however, are not the aspects that the West has retained.

Neel Burton is author of The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

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