I’m pleased to be giving two talks on the upcoming Day School The Limits of Free Speech: Offence, Hate Speech and No Platforming on Saturday 25th of February 2023.
I thought I would put up some online resources that would be
useful to anyone looking to attend the event.
Free online reading
Background reading on Freedom of Speech
van Mill, David, "Freedom
of Speech" in Zalta (ed.) The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021)
Anderson, Luvell and Michael Barnes, "Hate Speech" in Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2022)
Bonotti, Matteo, and Jonathan
Seglow. "Freedom
of expression" Philosophy Compass 16, no. 7 (2021):
e12759.
If you want to buy a short introductory book, I recommend Nigel Warburton's Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction.
JS Mill's classic (and very readable) text On Liberty (1859) is available cheaply, but as it is out of copyright you can view it online (also see below for a free the audiobook)
More advanced readings
I’ve noticed that a lot of the
works of Alexander Brown, an author in this area, are available free online. If
you want to read something more advanced you could read one of his
papers, or his book.
Videos
There are lots of videos online discussing liberty, free speech and
hate speech.
Two authors for whom I have a lot of respect, Jeremy Waldron
and Ronald Dworkin presented their contrasting views on the issue of hate
speech in 2013. Links here.
Audio
(listen online or download to your podcast app)
Audiobooks
Some people have kindly recorded J.S. Mill’s On Liberty
(1859) as an audiobook
Nigel Warburton reads the Chapter John Stuart Mill on Liberty from his book Philosophy: The Classics.
Podcasts
Tim Scanlon on Free Speech Philosophy Bites (2008)Rae Langton on Hate Speech Philosophy Bites (2012)
Caught between free speech and hate
speech Big ideas (2018)
Jacob Mchangama Clear and Present Danger - Free Speech
Podcast (Many episodes!)
Freedom of Speech: Censors working overtime Origin Story (2022)
Controversial Ideas and “No Platforming” with Jeff McMahan Why we argue (2019)
Deplatforming Jurisprudes (2022).
Political Philosophy and liberty
These materials also provide a useful background to the online short course Political Philosophy: An Introduction, which I often teach.
This 10 week course runs three or four times per year.
Liberty is one of the topics covered. We look at
JS Mill’s harm principle and whether and how you it applies to various cases.
I hope to see you on one or both of the courses above!
