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发表于 3-13-2009 15:05:38
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Re: [转寄]林达：言论自由的目的并非为追求真理（转）
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帖一个密尔相关论述的简介：
Mill was a Utilitarian; this means he believed that things and actions were good in proportion to the amount of happiness they engendered and the amount of people they engendered happiness in - in other words, the aim was for the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In addition to this standard form of Utilitarianism, Mill also added that some kinds of happiness were innately greater than others, as was shown by people favoring one over the other (for example, ignorance may be bliss, but Mill held that no learned person would choose to be ignorant even if the ignorant were, in a way, happier than them. "It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied." He claimed.) Mill argued in his work 'On Liberty' that free speech is crucial to the greatest happiness for the greatest number, for happiness in the long term can only be achieved through knowledge, and only free speech promotes knowledge; restricting free speech ultimately stifles knowledge and learning.
Mill argued this through four separate arguments. His first argument was that to silence a particular opinion is to assume that that opinion is false or dangerous. This however assumes our own infallibility, and to ignore the lesson of history. There have been many ideas which were once thought clearly false or dangerous by the vast majority of people, and yet have turned out to be true or beneficial in the end. For example, the idea that kings were divinely chosen to rule absolutely was considered to be essential for the happiness and stability of countries, but we can now see that that is not the case; most of us would not choose to live under a dictatorship now, having lived in a democracy. Since few people truly think that they are infallible, they cannot support silencing opinions they don't agree with. Related to this point is Mill's second argument, which is that most often a minority opinion and majority opinion each hold some portion of the truth. The only way to combine them and get closer to the whole truth is to allow public discourse to compare and contrast the various ideas, put together the truth, and discard the chaff.
Of course these arguments assume that there is some truth to minority opinion. The real test of any defense of free speech is how it justifies defending free speech even for those ideas which are false and have no merit - even dangerous. What therefore if the minority opinion was false, and we somehow knew it to be so with certainty, should we then restrict free speech? Mill had two arguments for this. Firstly Mill argued that silencing opposing opinions does nothing to destroy them, merely pushes them underground, where they will probably convince many ignorant people that they are true. Allowing false opinions to be aired allows the learned to attack and destroy the false opinions publicly. People are far less likely to believe in a false opinion which has had its flaws discussed at great length and proved beyond reasonable doubt, than they are an idea which has been silenced and is has been given the appeal of being forbidden and dangerous. An excellent example of this exists today; anti-Semitic groups often claim that Jewish people control the media, the government, etc. Because these claims are taboo in our society, and not discussed but instead stifled, it allows these anti-Semitic groups to claim that they are stifled because there is truth in them and the Jewish conspiracy doesn't want you to hear the truth. Whereas if these ideas were dragged out into the light of day and shown to have no merit, far fewer people would fall for them.
Secondly Mill argued that if people truly feel that what they believe is true, they should welcome opposing ideas. They should welcome the chance to show people why they believe what they do, and how the ideas they believe to be true are better than the alternative ideas. If certain ideas are true then allowing false beliefs to be discussed will do nothing to harm the true as they will again be proven to be true, while the false will eventually be proven to be false (some people have argued against this. Most agree that eventually the truth will triumph as that seems to be what has happened in the past, but they are uneasy with how long that might take). Further, he said, if someone has never had to defend their own beliefs, never had to figure out why they hold to be true what they do, and just blindly accept what they have been told, they cannot be said to truly know their own beliefs. And if this condition spreads, then accepted truths will become enfeebled, as people forget why they held them in the first place. Ultimately this could mean that a false idea which comes along later, but which has clearer reasons for being held, comes to be accepted over the older true idea, because nobody can remember the grounds on which they held the older idea and thus the new idea seems better.
Objections
Mill, being a utilitarian, is not a believer in human rights. This causes problems for some people who like the idea of human rights. More importantly, it means that it is possible to argue that a situation could arise where the greatest good would arise from stifling the truth, and restricting free speech, rather than allowing public discourse, and therefore in such a situation Mill would, it seems, have to argue that free speech should be restricted in those circumstances. For example, would it not have been better to shut Hitler up back in the 1920s? Mill was a Rule Utilitarian, and therefore has something of a reply to this.
Rule Utilitarians hold that it is impossible to judge rightly what course of action which would lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people in every single circumstance. There are simply too many variables for a person to consider; any serious attempt to do so would render the point moot as the time to act would have long since passed. Therefore, the only way to realistically work towards the greatest good, is to figure out what actions lead to the greatest happiness in most cases. These actions would be distilled into principles which would be used to guide one's actions. In this case, Mill would argue that since generally speaking free speech is a good thing, we should always allow it. In any given situation when free speech would seem to be harmful, could we really be sure that we weren't just over looking some factor which would actually make free speech a good? All we can go on is our experience, which would tell us that free speech is usually good.
Still, although pragmatically speaking this is a good reply, the point still stands. If it ever were possible to know every single circumstance in play, and we could somehow know that free speech would definitely lead to worse consequences than restricting speech would, Mill would have to support restricting free speech in this circumstance. This doesn't sit well with those who believe in inalienable human rights.
There is also the feature of Utilitarianism which many find the most unjustifiable - it seems to inevitably lead to sacrificing the few for the many. For example, while in the long term it might be better to have allowed Hitler to say his piece, what of all the people who died because of him? Is it right to sacrifice those people for 'the greater good'? Is it right to allow racist hate speech to be publicly uttered, even if it eventually leads to the ideas being discredited, if in the meantime people die from hate crimes?
http://www.elliotcross.com/essays/mill1.html
【 在 posteriori 的大作中提到: 】
: 你这个文做得有点累赘了。感觉你的意思是说言论自由不能或者不应该在功利主义的框架下得到辩护，如果是这样的话那也太过分了点。言论自由当然可以由于其有利于发现真理完善真理而成为正当的－－密尔的自由论通篇都在谈这个问题。
: 当然了密尔的东西你不一定赞成，但是你如果反对他的观点，那就不能不提他的观点。
: (以下引言省略...)
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发表于 3-13-2009 15:00:59
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