Freedom of speech is objective morality

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Philo_stone
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Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Philo_stone »

I think people will agree that anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral. I find freedom of speech when logical always lead to greater good and suppressing it spread immoral and evil culture and beliefs. Suppression of speech is always due to evil and immoral practices that people need to be protected to keep their ego intact. Also to hide some of their weaknesses, or fulfill selfish gains.

Whether it's parents suppressing the speech of a child, husband suppressing wife, teacher suppressing student, or clerics suppressing adherents, it always lead to something immoral.

There freedom of speech is always helpful to achieve greater good.

What's your thoughts on this?
Steve3007
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Steve3007 »

Philo_stone wrote:I think people will agree that anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral.
Only in a tautological sense.
I find freedom of speech when logical always lead to greater good and suppressing it spread immoral and evil culture and beliefs.
In your view, what does it mean for freedom of speech to be "logical"?
Suppression of speech is always due to evil and immoral practices that people need to be protected to keep their ego intact. Also to hide some of their weaknesses, or fulfill selfish gains.
I disagree with the word "always" and I think even most ardent advocates of free speech probably would too. See the "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" exemplar as a starting point.
Whether it's parents suppressing the speech of a child, husband suppressing wife, teacher suppressing student, or clerics suppressing adherents, it always lead to something immoral.
How about the law, by the use of legal penalties, suppressing libel?
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Marvin_Edwards
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

The value of freedom of speech comes from its utility in conveying truth. The value of truth comes from its role in keeping us in touch with reality, such that we can deal more effectively with it.

So, we should not be so free as to lie, deceive, manipulate, or otherwise cause unnecessary harm to others by our speech.

When speech is used to create unnecessary harm it is objectively immoral. When speech is used to benefit everyone then it is objectively moral.
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Benj96
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Benj96 »

Interesting, however,
what if ones speech is so harmful it causes another a great deal of suffering, depression or even drives them to suicide such as in cases of verbal abuse, cyberbullying and harassment, would you argue the antagonist should not have their speech suppressed even though it is clearly causing a lot of harm to another person? Freedom of speech can equally be considered hateful as it is constructive so one could define it simultaneously as freedom of hate speech and freedom of constructive/ kind speech. So the options are really, allow all speech forms - which will give the ultimate level of freedom but leave a portion of the population viciously attacked with hateful words and harsh verbal assault or monitor and censor speech but potentially prevent those who have ambitious "outside the box", unusual or potentially contentious/controversial ideas from discussing freely because some will not be sure if its harmful or not.

Secondly logic often contradicts morality. If you consider the preservation of the environment or over-population one might logically argue that culling surplus humans is the logical correction for over abundance of the species and our excessive demand on resources but obviously that wouldnt be a moral solution. Its logical because the outcome would clearly be a reduction in the cause of environmental destruction and overpopulation but immoral because it causes harm to a portion of.the population which it would be next to impossible to justify as everyone constitutionally has human rights to survival and prosperity.
There are two types of logic at play when solving human issues; objective - which solely seeks the solution using whatever parameters are provided, and moral - which advises and tweaks the objective endeavour so as to reduce harm and injustices as much as possible. Especially when there are multiple ways of achieving the end goal.
As for the "greater good" - it's a term often used but little understood by anyone as what each individual considers "good" is qualitatively different to anothers. There hasn't been thus far a unanimous global agreement on what is ultimately and fundamentally "good". There is still war and poverty, inequality and racism so if there is a "greater good" any single individual (due to their personal bias/prejudices or simply because of what they cannot observe immediately around them) has at most a limited comprehension of it. Really we would be talking about the "greater good" according to [insert name] to which there is always a contradicting party which will highlight where ones concept of greater good fails to qualify it fairly for everyone.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Philo_stone wrote: May 15th, 2020, 11:56 pm I think people will agree that anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral.
Not this person. What you're suggesting amounts to mob rule. Whatever most people don't like gets ruled out. So if most people don't like people riding motorcycles, say, so that they're uncomfortable to varying degrees when people riding motorcycles, then you'd have to say that riding motorcycles is immoral. That leads to banning motorcycle riding. (I'm just using motorcycle riding as a relatively arbitrary example to avoid an emotional hot-button example that would lead to a big tangent perhaps.)

More moral views have a lot more to do with consent with respect to actions that directly involve someone--that is, actions where someone is part of the action in question. That doesn't include simply observing something.
I find freedom of speech when logical always lead to greater good and suppressing it spread immoral and evil culture and beliefs.
So, per "anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral" you don't wind up with freedom of speech, because there's a lot of speech that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable. People wind up wanting to ban that speech. Hence why you should abandon "anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral."
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Oops typo:
"so that they're uncomfortable to varying degrees when people riding motorcycles"

Should have obviously been:
"so that they're uncomfortable to varying degrees when people ride motorcycles"
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: May 16th, 2020, 3:48 am I disagree with the word "always" and I think even most ardent advocates of free speech probably would too. See the "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" exemplar as a starting point.
I'm a free speech absolutist. I'm in favor of being able to yell "fire." I also allow slander, libel, etc.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: May 16th, 2020, 5:49 am The value of freedom of speech comes from its utility in conveying truth. The value of truth comes from its role in keeping us in touch with reality, such that we can deal more effectively with it.

So, we should not be so free as to lie, deceive, manipulate, or otherwise cause unnecessary harm to others by our speech.

When speech is used to create unnecessary harm it is objectively immoral. When speech is used to benefit everyone then it is objectively moral.
If I were to believe in "objective" anything re morality, the first thing I'd believe is that your views are objectively evil.

Luckily I don't believe in "objective" anything re morality.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Oops another typo above . . . this board really drives me crazy that we can't edit posts, as I'm a typo king.

Anyway, "More moral views have a lot more to do with consent with respect to actions that directly involve someone" should have been "MY moral views have a lot more to do with consent with respect to actions that directly involve someone"
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Marvin_Edwards
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Terrapin Station wrote: May 16th, 2020, 8:05 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: May 16th, 2020, 5:49 am The value of freedom of speech comes from its utility in conveying truth. The value of truth comes from its role in keeping us in touch with reality, such that we can deal more effectively with it.

So, we should not be so free as to lie, deceive, manipulate, or otherwise cause unnecessary harm to others by our speech.

When speech is used to create unnecessary harm it is objectively immoral. When speech is used to benefit everyone then it is objectively moral.
If I were to believe in "objective" anything re morality, the first thing I'd believe is that your views are objectively evil.

Luckily I don't believe in "objective" anything re morality.
Yes. You seem to have a problem with the terms "objective" and "subjective". I suspect that you are using the "everything is subjective" trump card as a cheap trick. But, you lose something in that trade.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: May 16th, 2020, 8:15 am
Yes. You seem to have a problem with the terms "objective" and "subjective". I suspect that you are using the "everything is subjective" trump card as a cheap trick. But, you lose something in that trade.
I no more think that "everything is subjective" than I think that the entire inventory of the world is inside of refrigerators. But surely some things, some of the inventory of the world is inside refrigerators. Let's get the location of things correct, and let's realize the upshots of those location differences.
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Marvin_Edwards
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Marvin_Edwards »

Terrapin Station wrote: May 16th, 2020, 8:43 am
Marvin_Edwards wrote: May 16th, 2020, 8:15 am
Yes. You seem to have a problem with the terms "objective" and "subjective". I suspect that you are using the "everything is subjective" trump card as a cheap trick. But, you lose something in that trade.
I no more think that "everything is subjective" than I think that the entire inventory of the world is inside of refrigerators. But surely some things, some of the inventory of the world is inside refrigerators. Let's get the location of things correct, and let's realize the upshots of those location differences.
But the location of the notion that some of the inventory is inside refrigerators and the notion that some of it is not, is inside your head. So are you speaking of "objective" facts or just your "subjective" opinion?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Marvin_Edwards wrote: May 16th, 2020, 9:17 am
Terrapin Station wrote: May 16th, 2020, 8:43 am

I no more think that "everything is subjective" than I think that the entire inventory of the world is inside of refrigerators. But surely some things, some of the inventory of the world is inside refrigerators. Let's get the location of things correct, and let's realize the upshots of those location differences.
But the location of the notion that some of the inventory is inside refrigerators and the notion that some of it is not, is inside your head. So are you speaking of "objective" facts or just your "subjective" opinion?
All notions are inside our heads, sure. Any fact about minds is a subjective fact. "Subjective" there is simply saying that we're talking about the location of brains-functioning-as-minds (well, or whatever else might function as minds, too). "Subjective" doesn't amount to "opinion but not a fact."

It's just like if we had these two terms: frigative and thermative, where frigative meant "of or in a refrigerator" and thermative referred to the complement--everything not in or of a refrigerator. Saying that there is milk in the refrigerator would be a frigative fact. That's all we're saying by saying that "notions are inside our heads is a subjective fact." We're noting that it's a fact about minds that notions only occur in them.
Steve3007
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Steve3007 »

Philo_stone wrote:I think people will agree that anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral.
Terrapin Station wrote:What you're suggesting amounts to mob rule. Whatever most people don't like gets ruled out.
No, he doesn't appear to me to be suggesting that. If he was suggesting that he would have said something like:

"What is morally right is what most people believe to be morally right."

He didn't say that. He equated morality with what he called "greater good". By my usage, that doesn't necessarily equate to a majority vote. It simply mutually defines the terms "moral" and "good". That's why I suggested that it was a tautology.
Terrapin Station wrote:I'm a free speech absolutist. I'm in favor of being able to yell "fire." I also allow slander, libel, etc.
Fair enough. I'm not a free speech absolutist myself, but it takes all sorts.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Freedom of speech is objective morality

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: May 16th, 2020, 9:48 am
Philo_stone wrote:I think people will agree that anything which leads to greater good is moral and anything which hinders it is immoral.
Terrapin Station wrote:What you're suggesting amounts to mob rule. Whatever most people don't like gets ruled out.
No, he doesn't appear to me to be suggesting that. If he was suggesting that he would have said something like:

"What is morally right is what most people believe to be morally right."

He didn't say that. He equated morality with what he called "greater good". By my usage, that doesn't necessarily equate to a majority vote. It simply mutually defines the terms "moral" and "good". That's why I suggested that it was a tautology.
You can't decide for someone else if something is good for them. They must decide for themselves. The only way to know the "greater good" is to poll people. "Is x good or bad?" If a majority say it's good, then that's the "greater good." No other interpretation holds water, because "good" is an individual assessment.
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