ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the three main philosophical arguments used to justify a free speech principle: the argument from truth; the argument from democracy; and free speech as an aspect of self-fulfilment. For this review, it is worth making a couple of general observations. F. Schauer takes freedom of speech to be an 'independent principle'. By 'independent principle', he means a principle that can stand alone without being reliant on any larger principle for its existence or justification. Schauer also takes freedom of speech to be an 'other-regarding' act because it has an effect on others. Speech can cause harm to the speaker, harm to others, harm to society and, when military secrets or lies about the government are disclosed, harm to the 'governing apparatus' of the state. Other-regarding acts, because of the potential of harm to others, are acts that may legitimately be subjected to control by the state.
