ABSTRACT
Persuasion principle is extremely important in the development of the law governing freedom of expression in the United States. This chapter addresses the argument, commonly used to defend the persuasion principle, that suppression is unnecessary because counter-persuasion—answering arguments—will cure any evils caused by persuasion. It suggests two important respects in which the persuasion principle must be qualified. One is that it can be overridden if the consequences of following it are too severe. The autonomy justification provides a way of determining when the consequences are too severe without engaging in open-ended balancing. The other qualification is that the persuasion principle has what might be called a libertarian bias: it is sensitive only to wrongs done by the government and systematically underemphasizes comparable wrongs done by private parties. The chapter describes how government actions affecting expression should be evaluated to determine if they are consistent with the autonomy rationale that underlies the persuasion principle.
