The first really authoritative work on freedom of speech was by John Milton's Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, written in 1644. Areopagitica was created as a response to the attempts of the British Parliament to ban publications for various purposes considered to be undesirable. Milton cites a number of arguments in support of freedom of speech. In particular, he writes that we can learn the truth only by comparing all existing points of view, moreover, in the world, there is no individual wise enough to single-handedly determine the truth for everyone else. The diversity of opinions is the decisive factor in the development of the mind according to its main goal: the search for truth. Therefore, Milton writes that the same one who destroys a good book kills the very mind. This argument gives the freedom of speech an instrumental value in our constant search for truth.
In general terms, it is possible to divide all the arguments for freedom of speech into consequential and deontological ones. Consequentialism proceeds from the fact that the action itself cannot be good or bad, ethical or unethical. The act can be called "good" only because of the corresponding consequences. Similarly, an act itself cannot be called bad, and every act can turn out to be good if its consequences are more favorable than the consequences of any other actions. In such a general formulation, it is not entirely clear what is meant by "favorable consequences", but most likely is meant happiness, well-being and the like. From this point of view, the consequences of maintaining freedom of speech should be more favorable than the consequences of rejecting it. Consequential arguments for freedom of speech attribute this freedom to purely instrumental value in achieving certain goals. From the point of view of consequentialism, freedom of speech is a necessary condition for the normal functioning of democracy. Citizens should be able to express their opinions, read and listen to other people's opinions, support or challenge various proposals, including those that they consider unacceptable.
Without freedom of speech, we cannot create a truly representative democracy and will have to be content with a pseudo-democracy in which citizens can vote, but if they do not have the opportunity to freely form their own opinion, this will not be a real democracy because it will lack a proper democratic process. The lack of consequential arguments lies in the fact that the inviolability of freedom of speech will be violated if it can be proved that in some cases or as a whole the refusal from freedom of speech will lead to better consequences. The deontological argument usually consists in the fact that people have the right to freedom of speech, and we are obliged to respect this right regardless of the consequences. Such arguments are often based on the need to preserve the autonomy of citizens. Human rights are an important normative value.
The weakness of the deontological arguments is the complete disregard for the possible consequences of freedom of speech, as this intuitively seems to us to be correct. There is also an intermediate position, which can be designated as a weak consequentialism. It consists in the fact that in a normal situation, the rights should be absolute and inviolable, but recognizes that in some cases it is necessary to take into account possible consequences. The basic idea of liberal democracy is that all citizens have equal dignity, and everyone has the right to express an opinion about how society should be, and this right also concerns opponents of liberal democracy. There are situations that allow a deviation from this principle, for example, if the expression of any opinion poses an immediate threat to the continued existence of liberal democracy.
Such a position does not imply once and for all certain criteria for how serious the consequences should be so that this is more important than freedom of speech. It should be a very specific and immediate threat to the security of the state or individuals. A similar thought was expressed during the famous trial "Brandenburg v. Ohio", in the verdict that freedom of speech is inviolable, except when the statement has the purpose to serve as the immediate cause of unlawful action, and most likely such an action will immediately occur precisely as a result of the utterance.
As a proponent of utilitarianism, Mill is critical of the hedonistic calculus of Bentham, in which utility is understood as pleasure without qualitative distinction between higher and lower forms of enjoyment. It can be said that Bentham tried to explain the qualitative aspects, that is, what is morally and legally correct decision or action by means of a quantitative comparison of the specific states of pleasure and suffering that are the results of implementing various alternative actions.
Mill refers to personal freedom, self-esteem, honesty and social well-being among the central and most important values.
When he defends the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, he does so because he considers them to be desirable for a society of quality. These liberal values are also important for rationality and the search for truth: a free public debate without any internal and external obstacles is a condition for us to develop reasonable points of view.
However, according to Mill, public opinion is ambiguous. On the one hand, it can suppress and restrict the views expressed by weaker groups. At the same time, Mill believes that public opinion can be formed and improved during the ongoing free discussion, in which intelligent individuals participate. On the other hand, to the extent that public discussion is open and free, it can lead to the correction of prejudices and mistakes. Nevertheless, although such a discussion can serve to correct prejudices and mistakes, it does not lead to a single truth. Free discussion, at least, allows more clearly express different perspectives and points of view, both for their supporters and for the opponents.
Only when the point of view is refuted and protected, it becomes clear what it really is. This means that we do not really know what we are thinking about until we have studied counterarguments. For the truth to appear to us as clear as possible, so that each of us has the best possible understanding of what he really thinks about, while being conscious of the clearest and impartiality that an opponent think, all this requires guaranteeing free public debates. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are indispensable conditions for guaranteeing open discussion. We can say that liberalism is a condition of rationality.
Justifying his point of view, Mill remains a utilitarian, since his argument still contains an idea of the maximum good. However, he brings to this idea important refinements that allow preserving the freedom of the individual. Mill struggles with such an idea of the good, according to which for the individual the best solution is to integrate it into something that is more socially, structurally embracing it. On the contrary, Mill is convinced that an individual has the right to oppose the universal, if not in a conflicted sense, or simply in a semantic one. The individual has the right to a private space. It is interesting that those who advocate the independence of the individual, and those who believe that the importance of the individual in his inbuilt into the universal, proceed from the idea of the good, but they understand it differently. But if the position of those who say that the good of the individual stems from the good of the whole society is more or less clear, it is not entirely obvious what the individualists are prepared to say about this.
At first glance, when we read Mill, it seems to us that he stands up for and defends solely the rights and interests of the individual. But the trick is that if we pay attention to his argument, we will see that he appeals also to the common good, but not in one step, but in two. Mill's rationale is to show that it is the freedom of a particular individual that will be most favorable to the society taken as a whole. For example, we can ask why society should not resist the utterance by citizens of any of their opinions? If the opinion is harmful and dangerous, then should it not necessarily be banned, unless it would not be good for society? This logic reminds us of the well-known reasoning of Caliph Omar, who burnt the priceless Alexandria library:. He said that all books are divided into those that contradict the Quran and those that agree with it. If they contradict the Quran, they are false and erroneous, and if they agree with it, they simply repeat it. In the first case, they are harmful, in the second – they are useless. Therefore, all books except the Quran can be harmlessly destroyed. So here works the same principle: freedom of speech can be abolished because if an opinion contradicts the general opinion, it is harmful and should not be expressed, but if it is consistent with it, then it is completely useless. Mill acts as a utilitarian and warns us against such an ideology. The freedom of an individual cannot be limited since only it is a universal good. Mill wants to say that it is good for everyone to recognize the freedom and independence of each person individually. The freedom of a person means not only have an opinion but also openly express it, which is an absolutely necessary condition for its effectiveness and social self-realization, furthermore only under such conditions the self-reward of everyone wins the whole society.
Mill says that society as a whole is prone to repressiveness, and it seems to be arranged so that it has its own private interest. First, society tends to suppress, subjugate and put itself into service. Secondly, it is inclined to impose opinions. Thus, there are two types of suppression: direct and indirect. Direct is any powerful procedures that are most obvious. Mill also draws attention to indirect, implicit suppression. Mill's existence forces him to say that the individual must be saved from the majority. The tyranny of the majority means the primary tyranny of public opinion, stereotypes of social behavior and cultural attitudes. These attributes of the mass character of a society are hardest for the individual to resist, a person is the most vulnerable to them and through this susceptibility is the most unprotected. Social tends to unify its states, and if this process is not properly resisted, soon it will turn into a mass production, replicating all its artifacts. In such a society, there will be no place for extraordinary ideas and discoveries, nor revolutionary breakthroughs and transformations: it will reproduce itself, but it will not be able to develop itself.
The protection of freedom of speech can often not be unequivocally attributed to the consequential or deontological approach but is a combination of arguments of both types. For example, it is often argued that democracy cannot exist without a fundamental freedom of speech, that is, freedom of speech is seen as a means to achieve the goal of democratic development, and here it is argued that all citizens have the right to freedom of speech, even if they use it to resist democracy.