Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - John Stuart Mill, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
18 Nov 2011
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Against censorship: mills defends complete freedom of though and discussion. It is never justifiable to silence the expression of an opinion, whether it is true or false. Response: cant we suppress, harmful, or false views: mills how can we know they"re false, many certainties have turned out to be false, to censor without testing it is to assume infallibility. Is it always better to know the truth: some knowledge can be harmful (weapons, knowledge can lead to the dissolution of society (atheism?, dostoevsky: necessary illusions . Harming others interests not sufficient to justify constraint. Its sometimes legitimate to allow people to harm others interests: ex. False views can function as a challenge (e. g. creationism: dead dogma versus living truth, enables believers of the truth to defend themselves. It"s always wrong to censor a view: but it is legitimate to restrict the expression if it is likely to directly instigate harm to others.
