ABSTRACT
A focus of anxiety in contemporary societies is not direct censorship by the State or Church but the informal limiting of freedom of expression by what is called self-censorship. While this is the subject of increasing empirical investigation and engages with some of the central concerns in the ethics of media, self-censorship remains relatively unexplored as a topic in moral and political philosophy. This chapter sets out the key ingredients of self-censorship and the kind of ethical problems that self-censorship can pose. It goes on to argue that there are two principal perspectives on self-censorship in political philosophy, and to describe how normative attitudes toward self-censorship, if they are more than merely rhetorical flourishes, are grounded in these perspectives. From one, it is fundamentally an important symptom of the invisible workings of social power, while from another, it is a necessary component of the civility that binds together societies or groups. Having explored these, the chapter arrives at the conclusion that, to the extent that neither the power or civility perspective on self-censorship is entirely dispensable, self-censorship is likely to remain a point of contention.
